The 12th Miasma
by Jiece
Summary: The continuation of "Hero Academy". As Alucard's demonic reign draws nearer, the state of Graphia is fragile at best. Can the 9 members of the Leonhart dormitory stick together and pull through in the end?
1. Aftermath

**Welcome, one and all, to the second installment of the Hero Academy series. If you haven't read the first installment, plainly entitled "Hero Academy", I highly suggest you do so now… the reason, of course, being that you wouldn't understand anything that's happening here. (Just click on my author name and you should be directed to a list of my stories… you can choose from there). For those returning: I'm pleased to continue to bring you my proudest work(s), enjoy!**

**.'.'.'**

Aftermath

"Nnngh…" someone groaned weakly nearby, just barely loud enough to rouse someone else from a deep sleep. This person couldn't recall why he'd even been sleeping in the first place, didn't know where he was, and generally had no knowledge pertaining to his surroundings whatsoever. He closed his eyes tightly after opening them for a brief moment, a small pressure on his chest irritating a sharp pain in it… but what was the pain from? What had he done to obtain this nagging injury? The image of a blade went through his head, quickly dismissed as he suddenly realized the presence of a headache that he'd also managed to obtain. With his mind now set on whatever was paining him; he also noticed the stark chill that had overtaken his hands and his almost numb left leg… what on earth had happened?

A mask flashed quickly in and out of his mind's eye.

_Kei!_

Rinn's eyes shot open, an action that would have been followed by his body bolting upright, had his reflexes not caught him… and thankfully so. To Rinn's relief and confusion, he found that the unfamiliar pressure on his chest wasn't anything to be worried about… but that it was, in fact, Paris. It was at this point that he managed to take in his surroundings: for the second time, Rinn found himself in the infirmary after blacking out in the arena… this time, however, he had guests. Across from him, he could see Aran, Sergin, and Astos in three separate beds, all sleeping peacefully with the exception of Sergin, who had the same serious face that he had on during the match, causing Rinn to wonder if he would ever wind down. To his left was Jiece, whom seemed quite content and comfortable in his resting, and another bed beyond it… though this one was empty… the sheets strewn about and one pillow on the floor, suggesting a recent and hasty getaway.

Back to the matter at hand, as far as Rinn could tell, Paris must have been waiting for quite some time for him to wake up… having fallen asleep while sitting in a small fold-out chair that had been supplied, her arms folded into a makeshift pillow for her head as she slept, leaning more on him than the edge of the bed. He propped himself up on an elbow and tried to be as quiet as possible. _Well, this is unexpected… and adorable._ He thought, tempted to brush back a few strands of her hair while caught in the sheer innocence of the moment, though deciding against it, so as not to push his luck.

As though his decision was a cue, Paris let out another small sigh and shifted her weight slightly, warning Rinn that she was soon to be awake. To save her the embarrassment of being caught in such an awkward situation, Rinn immediately lowered himself back down and closed his eyes, feigning slumber. He felt a slight jostling, which he could only assume was Paris recoiling in embarrassment at how she'd fallen asleep, before the weight was lifted. He opened one eye very slightly after a few moments of silence, seeing that she was caught up in scouring the room to find out if anyone had seen them. After a little while longer, she looked back to him, at which point he promptly closed his eyes again, and sighed lightly. Hearing the squeaking hinge of the flimsy old chair as she got up to leave, Rinn took his chance and "woke up".

Following up a small yawn to audibly catch his audience's attention with a drawn-out stretch to cement the fact that he was now "awake", Rinn succeeded in diverting Paris's attention from the exit. Their eyes met for a time, neither quite knowing how to start a conversation that they both wanted to happen as soon as possible. Rinn decided to take the initiative: "morning."

Paris just smiled in response, taking her seat again. "Are you okay?"

"Just tired and sore… what about you? Did anything happen on the outside?"

She shook her head slightly. "No… everyone just tried to get out of the coliseum through the main exits, then found out they were closed off. A lot of people panicked and tried to break through, and a few people went back to try to help whoever was fighting the demon."

"Which were you?"

"Oh, uh… well…" Paris blushed a bit, "I sort of… hid…" She looked down at the floor and became quiet.

_Damnit, damnit, damnit! Why do I ask things like that?! _Rinn thought as he hurriedly tried to think of something that would change the subject. "So, uh, what happened to everyone after it was all over?"

Paris looked up at Rinn again and let a faint smile show as she knew that he was attempting to change the subject… she was grateful. "Well… you were brought here by a team of white mages along with Aran and Trent… about ten minutes afterwards, Gana and Verikk returned to the grounds with Astos, who was in almost as bad a condition as you three. After that, when we went to check on Jiece, who was supposed to be asleep, we found him hanging upside down above the doorway and unresponsive from all the blood that went to his head… The Headmaster later called for all of the students, faculty, and visiting families to meet in the Celestial Hall after that and gave a big speech about new measures that would be taken to protect the school from future threats… it went over pretty well."

Rinn considered this for a moment… _That's quite a list of aftermath details… that all probably took a good few hours…_ "How long have I been out?"

"Three days."

"Oh… jeez." Rinn said under his breath, "that long, huh?"

Paris nodded. "I'm just glad you're okay."

Rinn smiled, warmed by the sentiment. He made an acknowledging gesture towards her with his hand, "I'm sorry if I made you worry." Rinn looked back to the bed next to him and deduced that it was where Trent had been resting, obviously… _but…_ "Where'd Trent go?"

"I'm right here."

Both Rinn and Paris immediately looked to the source of the voice to find Trent where there was once an empty bed. "Seriously? Neither of you noticed me walk in and sit down? Trent one, lovebirds zero."

"Trent!" Rinn hissed, face hot with embarrassment.

"Fine, fine… sheesh, I figured you'd be in a better mood after waking up next to your freaking significant other."

"Trent!" Paris spat, sporting a shade of red almost brighter than Rinn's.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop…"

…

…

…

"So when is the 'reunited at last' kiss?"

This time Rinn straight-up rose from his bed, put both feet sternly on the floor, looked Trent dead in the eye… and pushed him off of his bed. With Trent, of course, there was now resulting pain, just laughter. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said as he brought himself up from the ground, "I just couldn't resist after being warned twice."

'.'.'.

"So I heard you met my son." Yazoo eyed Kei calmly as they walked through the scorching desert sun. "What did you say to him?"

Kei shrugged the question off and remained facing forward. "Even the great Yazoo is concerned for his child? I'm touched."

"Concerned that you may have said too much… don't forget that the Red Spire is to be a **secret**, Kei."

"It was the fighter who decided to reveal us… not that I was to suspect he'd even know? He's just a kid."

"A kid that happens to be next in line for the position of captain of the guard, you imbecile… can't you even bring yourself to admit that you should have, at the very least, taken on a different form? You could have fought them in the body of Astos, for instance."

"That would require the destruction of Gana and Verikk… like it or not, they remain as difficult to get by as always, Yazoo. You're one to talk about not spreading the name, anyway… I've never been introduced to your new friend, here." Kei looked to the other side of Yazoo, where the Original was walking at an equal pace. "And I'd like to thank you for inviting him to our little gang without my consent."

"I didn't exactly have a choice either, demon." The Original snapped, trudging the sand between his feet. "Yazoo revived me for some reason that he's yet to share with me aside from apparently **torturing** his son… you've no reason for introduction either, as far as I'm concerned.

Kei stopped in his tracks and hung his head. About twenty paces later, the Original and Yazoo both stopped as well and turned to face him. He looked up slowly, both eyes now crying single tears. "I don't like him. He dies." Without so much as a moment's pause, Kei drew a knife from his belt and threw it directly into the Original's skull, straight down the middle. He fell onto both knees, and then to his side… unmoving. Kei walked the twenty steps to catch up with Yazoo, who started to walk in stride with him once more.

"That wasn't exactly the reaction I'd hoped for… he had his uses. The ability to make quite the army."

"One army is just as good as the next one, Yazoo… what matters is the one leading it."

Yazoo stopped again, and this time Kei stopped in the same moment. They both turned to find the Original walking towards them, regardless of the fact that his body was still quite dead not too far behind him. "How about an army that cannot be limited into numbers… an army that cannot die?" Yazoo whispered to Kei.

"Why didn't we have him last time?"

At this point the Original met up with them again and, without saying a word, continued the trek with his partner and his killer. Yazoo smirked. "He didn't exist last time. I have a few more for us to go after, as well… we'll have the perfect offense, defense, and most of all, leader. It's an entirely different world out there, Kei… we're going to take it, harvest it, and rule it with an iron fist… it won't be too long now, now that Lord Alucard has taken the throne."

"The first King."

"The only King."

The three stopped at the gates of Alucard's citadel and kneeled humbly. Kei and Yazoo looked up to see none other than the demon god himself, streaks and splatters of blood splotched about his entire body. "You have one of the pieces, Lieutenants?"

"Yes, Lord Alucard." They said in unison.

"Excellent… I've retrieved one as well."

Both demons looked to one another, then back to their master. "L-Lord?"

A hunched, unpleasantly lanky man walked out of the darkness of the citadel behind Alucard and stopped beside him. Like Kei, he also wore a mask… this one of the purest white. His hair, a solid white-silver, extended beyond his waistline, with two long, thick streaks in the front falling to mid-chest level. His coat was unmistakably Sephiroth's, dropping down almost to the floor. The metallic shoulder guards, however, had been stripped away and replaced with a single white stud of similar substance to his mask on his right shoulder. "As his power grows… his mask will take on a unique form and design… and his shoulder guard will grow to become an imposing, monolithic armor that will symbolize the new generation of our minions. Borne from the body of the last demon lord and the will of the new regime… may I present to you… Reeve."

'.'.'.

"So you're telling me… we're not allowed to leave school grounds to a radius more than five feet without an advisor or a professor?" Rinn asked, baffled at the harshness of the measure he'd recently been informed of.

Trent nodded solemnly. "And since Astos is going to be under careful surveillance for a good while, we can't get permission or chaperoning from him."

"Well there goes the traditional hang-out spot by the greenhouse… what else did I miss?"

Trent and Paris both looked away from Rinn at this point, both looking as though they didn't quite know what to say next. This, of course, only made him all the more nervous, curious, and confused. "Well? What is it? Early curfew? Security checkpoints? Overseen recreation? It can't be **that** bad, whatever it is. I'll bet… that…" Rinn slowed himself to a stop when he noticed a tear welling up in Paris's eye. He then decided to wait reverently until they were both ready to reveal whatever it was they were hiding.

Trent finally turned to him and let out a heavy sigh. "Rinn, a few families were really concerned about the safety of their kids here at the school after that Kei guy showed up… and some are going to be taking them back home to continue their education somewhere else."

Rinn's eyes widened as he hastily straightened up at the news. "It's not one of the Leonharts, is it? They're not gonna try to break us up, are they?"

Silence.

"Who is it, Trent!? Dieh? Naru? Jiece? Aran?"

Again there was silence; Trent looked down to the floor before closing his eyes and letting out another sigh. "Rinn, it… it's…"

Rinn placed his hands on Trent's shoulders and lifted him up to look at him. "Trent… don't tell me it's you…"

"No, Rinn, it isn't me… it's… well…"

Paris gently shoved Trent to the side and took his place, locking sorrowful eyes with Rinn. Before he had a chance to say anything, she stood up and embraced him tightly, her head resting on his shoulder. "It's you, Rinn… your guardians are taking you home."

It was at that point, to Rinn, that all the sound and color had been drained from the world. All that remained was bleak, black and white reality. _…me?_

.'.'.'


	2. Leaving

Leaving.

The next day came with an atmosphere of the stalest depression for Rinn. Everything was done with empty emotion and internal conflict, angry and completely lacking any kind of resistance. He ignored the rest of the world, for the most part… constantly thinking of a way to change the minds of his parents, but to no avail. _I can't even think of what kind of reason they have to withdraw me in the first place… since when is father this careful?_

He seemed to project an aura around him for the entirety of the day that made others around him want to keep their distance… no one quite knew what to say. It was just like old times for Rinn, so he didn't exactly notice… he couldn't bring himself to face any of them anyway. In fact, his time at the academy seemed increasingly to be more of a dream than an actual period of his life… a few months that never really existed. It wasn't long before someone decided to break into the silence… with a very unusual form of a goodbye.

"So you're just going to leave? You're just going to roll over and take this?"

Rinn slammed his trunk closed and put the latches into place. It had been only a few hours after having woken up to the horrible reality in which he was no longer a student of the Hero Academy, and it was only a few more before he was no longer present on its boundaries. "I don't really have a choice, Trent… I'm not even legally a student here anymore…"

"Well you've already paid the tuition for the year, haven't you? Couldn't you just asked your family to let you stay here until the school year is over? Then you can spend the summer trying to convince them to let you come back!"

He cast a severely annoyed glare towards Trent, sincerely wishing that he would drop the act for at least a few minutes. He started towards the door to the hallway, furious at his parents' decision. This was probably what confused Trent the most… no matter how much anger Rinn exhibited, he remained non-defiant. "You know as well as I do how stupid that sounds, Trent… I'm really not in the mood."

Trent's expression became deeply annoyed; not even his antics could permeate through the smoky shroud that Rinn had thrown around his emotions. It was at this point that he came up with an idea. The Cedric family has a saying, after all, that "That which cannot be broken by the fist can be broken by the mind, and that which cannot be hindered by the mind can be hindered by the fist."

"Rinn," he began, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder, "can I just ask you one thing?"

Rinn sighed and turned towards him, figuring that he could humor him at least one last time. "What is it?"

"Can you take a punch?"

"Wha-OOF!" Rinn doubled over as Trent's fist met his stomach, falling onto his knees immediately afterwards. "What the heck was that for?" he asked weakly, clutching the injured area.

"Frankly, Rinn… you're angry."

"Well, yeah, you **did** just hit me for no reason, after all!" Rinn began to raise his voice as he spoke.

"There's a reason…" Trent picked Rinn up by his collar and leaned him up against the door. He then turned the knob and let it swing open, watching Rinn plummet to the ground as it did so. "We're fighting."

"…we're fighting?"

"Yup."

"Trent, why the hell would we- OOF!" Rinn started before Trent kicked him in the side, silencing him.

"Like I said, you're angry. You could deal with it the civilized way, but that takes forever, I know… the other way out would be to deal with your anger through aggression towards someone… and who better than the neigh-invincible me? I **was** just going to flat-out suggest it, but I knew you wouldn't because I hadn't done anything wrong… until now, that is." Trent finished up his miniature speech by putting a hefty boot on Rinn's chest and applying some pressure. "I'm only trying to help."

Rinn grabbed his ankle and threw him off of his chest, bringing himself back onto his feet as quickly as his body would allow and facing Trent. "So you're saying… that you just want me to beat you up?"

"God no, I'm going to fight back."

Rinn sighed, "Trent, I only have a few hours left at the academy and you want me to spend my time fighting you, one of my best friends? Surely you've got to have some other reason than 'you're angry'."

Trent shook his head with a distinct vigor. "Everyone's gotta vent sometime, buddy." He continued as he added to his cockiness with the gesture of brushing the bangs out of his face. He could tell that Rinn was toying with the idea internally… _probably at the "on one hand, on the other hand" stage in his train of thought… I can always tip the scales a bit._ The warrior walked straight up to Rinn and took his hand, curled it up into a fist for him, and put it to his chest. "I want you…" he said, staring the mage down, "to hit me as hard as you can."

For a brief moment, Rinn was silent. He looked in quiet contemplation to his fist, and then to Trent… fist, then Trent, then fist, then Trent… "No." he finally said, shaking his head. He let his hand relax and fall to his side again, turning around to walk back and leaving a disappointed Trent in the dust. "I'm not going to fight you, Trent… I just can't bring myself to do it."

Trent sighed and let his gaze fall to the ground. _I tried…_ he thought. It was then that Trent felt a familiar heat in the air that just so happened to warm his soul as well as he looked up to find the sight he'd been wanting to see for quite some time. Rinn stood tall, both hands blazing with bright flames, with his gaze focuses solely on Trent. "I distinctly remember hearing you say that you couldn't bring yourself to fight me about two seconds ago…" he said with a smile.

Rinn returned the grin as he readied himself for assault, taking his stance. "Not with just my bare hands, I couldn't."

"Glad to hear it!" Trent rushed directly at Rinn, back-handing the first fireball flung in his direction. He veered off of his bee line to the right as he came within striking range, using the right wall as a platform to jump off of in order to get the advantage of attacking from above as well as dodging the second fireball in the confusion of the maneuver. Rinn dove out of the way as Trent's fist connected with the ground, disturbing the stones set into the flooring as it did so.

Rinn somersaulted back onto his feet as he completed the dive, whirling around and tossing another small fireball in Trent's direction as he did so, this one striking him square in the chest with a contained explosion. The force sent him staggering backwards quite quickly towards the window at the end of the hallway, which was really only six or so feet to the left once you walk out of the dormitory entrance. And Trent, being the natural exaggerator that he is, intentionally ran his back into it with enough force to shatter the window, falling backwards through it as he did. "Trent!" Rinn cried out in worry, fearing that he'd more than overdone his response to Trent's request to fight as he ran to the window.

The grabbed the windowsill and stuck out his head, looking down to see where Trent had fallen. For a split second, Rinn experienced a mixture of confusion and terror that he'd never felt before when he noticed that there was no body to see at all. His fear was doused, however, once Trent poked his head from the window of the floor below the one Rinn was on and looked up to him, waving. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"You almost gave me a heart attack, you idiot! Don't do that again!" Rinn shouted down to his friend.

"Oh no, it's great fun! Here, try it!" and without warning, Trent climbed onto the windowsill and leapt up to Rinn as quick as a wink, grabbing him by the collar of his robes and pulling him from the building into the open air. Of course, knowing Trent, there was no fall-back plan… literally. This was realized by both students after about two seconds of free falling down the side of the building. Rinn could only slap himself for agreeing to Trent's ridiculous request.

"It's things like this…" Rinn began rather loudly to be heard over the rushing wind, "that make me regret befriending you."

"You know you love it." Trent responded with confidence.

About halfway down the total height of the academy, Rinn made up his mind on how to escape the imminent ground issue. "Feather fall!" he roared against the wind, holding his staff up high as both he and Trent immediately began to slow down to a pace nearing that of being stopped altogether. Rinn, still hanging limply in the air, let out a great sigh of relief as he looked up to Trent, whom, to his surprise, was standing as though he were on solid ground. His eyes widened. "All right… how?"

Trent lifted a foot and tapped the sole of his shoe. "You gotta love Dieh's inventions sometimes." He drew his sword from its sheath and began to walk towards his Rinn, smiling ever-so-slightly. "We're still fighting, by the way." He lifted up his leaf blade sword for a great vertical cleave as he said this, taking his time so as to give Rinn time to register what he'd just said.

"What?!" Rinn leapt backwards and skidded across the same invisible ground that Trent was standing on, skidding slightly from the sudden movement. "I was hanging there waiting to hit the ground, that's not fair!"

Trent smiled more broadly this time. "You seem to have made it out okay…" he said, pointing down to Rinn's feet. "My turn this time… how?"

"I manipulate all kinds of elements; you don't think I can walk on air?" Rinn responded smartly, adjusting the brim of his hat. _Because I sure as hell didn't think I could… or, I mean, I've never been able to successfully._ He looked up at Trent, then down to his feet, then back to Trent. _Is it because I'm fighting someone who matches my level perfectly? Someone who doesn't force me to play defensively? Or is it because I don't have to worry about anyone but myself in this kind of fight?_ Then Rinn realized something… he could feel his heart beating… and fast. His adrenaline was running, his mind was racing, and his body was surprisingly relaxed, considering the previous two conditions. _Have I become some kind of fight-aholic or something?_ He fixed his gaze onto Trent. _Or… have I just wanted fight you… without realizing it this whole time?_

"Guess I never thought about it. Cool trick, though." Trent felt similarly to his adversary… he had every symptom he could think of that was connected to a fight of cold, gritty survival… without any of the fear and worry. It was a relieving experience for the both of them. _Sure I'll fight anybody once… or twice. It's natural for guys to want to fight, and more so a Cedric, it's in our blood. But when I'm here presented with the chance to fight against someone who's my best friend and polar opposite at the same time… I'm not sure how to feel._ He re-evaluated himself quickly before changing his mind. _Scratch that, I feel great!_

Something happened between Rinn and Trent in that setting. To one side was the cold stone wall of the academy, otherwise seen as establishment where rules were enforced and boundaries put into play… "The man". To the other side, though, was open air… a body of water far off in the distance, below the lightly cloudy sky and above the dew-coated grass, with rich, evergreen trees on either side of the plain that led down to it. Somewhere in between those two was where Rinn and Trent were caught: 15 stories above the ground and lodged into a stare down. Every smug comment made by Rinn, every offensive joke told by Trent… every wound caused by the mage, every friendly injury brought on by the warrior… every small quirk and annoyance that each boy held for the other was suddenly piled up in their minds. _Has everything that we've done… let up to a conflict? _They both thought in unison. _**This**__ conflict?_

"Rinn." Trent finally broke the silence, letting his blade fall to his side.

"Hm?"

"I can hold my own against anyone… even you. So don't hold back at all, you got me?"

Rinn smirked coolly. "I was about to say the same thing. I can take whatever you've got, too. A sword is easy enough to dodge."

"Oh really?" Trent asked, cocking his head to one side. "Care to test that theory?"

"Prove me wrong."

Trent pushed himself forward with his ox-like strength in a mad dash to his opponent, lugging his hefty blade behind him as he ran. He threw a horizontal slash at Rinn as quickly as the weight of his weapon would allow, which was easily dodged by the mage as he jumped out of the way. Trent spun with the momentum of his swing all 270 degrees of the way through to face Rinn again, just in time to raise his sword in defense against a simple, though powerful, fireball. It bounced off of the side of the blade as Trent angled it, and then lowered it only to see yet another flaming sphere coming right towards him, this one significantly larger.

He quickly jammed the point of his sword into the ground-like layer of air that the two were standing upon to brace it, gripping the hilt with his right hand to keep it in place and bracing the flat of the blade with his left. The great fireball struck Trent's makeshift shield dead-on, and with no angle to slide off of, he took the full force of it. The fighter was sent flying back from the magnitude of the hit, sword in hand weighing him down, and crashed quite roughly on the ground, starting with the back of his head. He skidded to a stop in due time, groaning as he lifted himself up and rubbing the back of his head.

Rinn smirked. "Again, a sword is easy enough to dodge."

Trent heaved himself up, inspired and determined to put Rinn in his place. He braced himself and charged once again with a great horizontal cleave, which was again easily avoided by the mage as he ducked under it. Trent let his strength falter so that the blade hit the ground and brought it back up again, using his momentum from the first strike, in a fierce uppercut slash. Rinn, still low to the ground, quickly dove out of the way as it brushed past him, somersaulting back to his feet immediately to see that Trent had anticipated it and was already halfway through a downward cleave. He quickly sidestepped out of the way of the strike, this one being the closest of all to him, and threw his palm up in front of Trent's aggravated face. "Aero!"

The harsh, concentrated blast of air hit Trent dead-on, blowing him both up about twenty feet and away from Rinn about thirty. Characteristic of the uncontrolled flailing in mid-air that Trent presented as he flew back, he landed sloppily, though soundly, on his back with a resounding "smack". Resilient as always, however, he pulled himself up onto his feet and shook his head rigorously to shake off the shock. He put a hand to his back and gently rubbed it, grimacing in pain, before snapping it back into place, looking to Rinn again afterwards. "Alright, so you're good at dodging… I'll give you that much."

Rinn chuckled at this for a second. "Don't blame me for showing you up; you're the one who wanted to fight."

"Yeah, yeah," he responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. "And you're the one who needed it… so I'm not going to disappoint." Trent took his left hand off of the hilt of his sword and exhaled slowly, seeming to concentrate on something intensely. His muscles tensed as he struggled to pick the blade up again with only one hand, a vein near his forehead showing clear definition from the stress. Quickly Trent took a deep breath in and gripped the hilt with all of his might, wrenching it high above his head in triumph. "Pay attention, Rinn… this is a little trick that I came up with a few weeks ago that I've been dying to show off. You see, as a Cedric, I can shift my combined muscle strength throughout my body. For instance, I can strengthen my upper body temporarily to lift heavy objects or I can fortify my lower body to run and jump faster and higher. However, when I focus every bit of it into one arm, I get this! **Giant's Grasp!**"

Trent slammed the blade down into the invisible ground with tremendous force, causing Rinn to sink down a foot or two as he briefly lost his focus in the tremor. He watched as Trent pulled his great weapon up again and slash through the air diagonally in the blink of an eye, as though he were running through the motions holding nothing at all, much less a two-handed sword. He stopped the weapon on a dime, with only the smallest shred of effort, and cut back down in the same diagonal pattern with a quick transition into a stab mid-way, as swiftly as though he were using Jiece's rapier instead of his own blade. "Think you can dodge this so easily?" he asked smugly.

"You bet I can!" Rinn shouted, jumping back onto the higher ground and rushing at Trent, right hand blazing. _Let's see how you feel about fighting fire with fire!_

The sparks flew as Trent's blade connected with Rinn's, and a power struggle between the two ensued, both attempting to push the other back with all of their might. Trent couldn't help but smile as he strained himself. "You brought out the fiery scimitar just for me? I'm touched."

"I told you I wasn't going to hold back, right?" Rinn said through his gritted teeth. "I'm not a lying man, Trent." He sent a burst of flame from his hand to the tip of his curved blade, throwing Trent off while he was caught off guard by the flare. Rinn slashed to the side through the air, a similar kick of flame separating itself from the edge of the blade as he did so, flung towards Trent with an edge matching that of the sword it came from. Trent cut the flame in two with a quick, upward slash to find a second just behind it, and a third.

Rinn cut through the air from side to side, from top to bottom, and every way in between, sending the projectile edges of flame towards his opponent in rapid succession. Trent, on the other end of the attack and equally uninhibited by weight, cut through each and every one of them, including those that would have missed him anyway, slowly advancing on Rinn as he weaved through the inferno. The two grew ever closer as each hacked and slashed their way through the air as though walking through a thick jungle with machetes, one slowly working his way past the obstacles, and one putting them up as fast as possible, finally meeting with another fantastic clash of steel and solid flame. The resulting flares the sprung from Rinn's blade danced about the atmosphere, singeing both fighters left and right as they struggled to overcome one another. Rinn let out a thin smile as his strength began to falter, Trent's blade coming all the closer to his face. "Inferno!" he shouted out as he jumped out of the range of Trent's weapon, letting it smash into the ground.

Trent found out all too soon what the spell did… a quick scan of his environment let him know. To his horror, every stream of fire that he'd cut down just moments ago had been split apart instead of destroyed; leaving twice as many flaming blades hanging in the air around them in a perfect sphere, all pointed directly at him. All at once they struck; hundreds and hundreds of white-hot, razor-sharp edges flew in from all different directions, leaving no exit between them. They closed in within the second that Rinn released his spell, and as quick as a bolt lightning, they transformed Trent into a great, jagged sphere of flame hanging in mid-air.

After two or three seconds of delay, the sphere tightened in on the warrior slightly and erupted into massive explosion that sent blades in all directions, disintegrating shortly after they were thrown. Trent, however, was shot straight down the fifteen stories of distance between the ground and him with reckless force. Dieh's boot modification destroyed, Trent helplessly collided with the trunk of an old oak tree far below, boring a hole straight through it, bringing it down with a resounding crack and moan of splintering wood, and leaving a deep impression in the earth as he skidded to a halt upon his collision, tearing up the soil with the momentum of his limp form.

Trent weakly brought his arm up and clawed at the ground in front of him, inching himself out of the ditch that he'd unwillingly dug. For a while he struggled to bring his upper body back onto the grassy terrain, and found it easier to bring the rest of himself out once he was able to do so. He rolled onto his back and looked up into the sky, dazed and awed by the sheer power behind Rinn's attack.

"Had enough?" Rinn taunted Trent from above as he casually strolled down towards him, supported by an invisible staircase of air as he walked. Only about two or three stories above the ground at this point, Rinn took his time descending, wanting to give Trent a chance to get back on his feet.

"After that wussy flamer fest you just pulled? You've got to be kidding." Trent stood up and brushed himself off, unscathed as always. He picked the hilt of his sword up from the ground, finding there to be no blade attached, and threw it back on the ground promptly afterwards. "And now I have no weapon…"

"So what, you're giving up?" Rinn asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

As expected, Trent laughed heartily at the question. "What, are you serious? Just when it's getting fun? These hands were made for more than baking!" He pounded his fists together thrice to prove his point, sporting a wicked grin.

Rinn stomped firmly onto the ground, charring the earth around his foot as it landed, and again conjured his signature flaming hands as he took his stance. "You know, I was skeptical at first…" he began, never taking his eyes off of Trent, "but I actually do feel a lot better. So I figure I should take this time to thank you before I beat you to a pulp."

Trent took his own battle stance as they began to circle one another, always keeping a direct line of sight. "I hate to disappoint, but it'll be me who does the beatings around here, thank you very much."

"Prove it, then!" Rinn rushed his opponent, fists blazing brightly.

"You're on!" Trent charged at his target, a new fire in his eyes.

'.'.'

**Well, I planned to write more, but the school thinks it's funny to pile up summer homework… so I was a bit distracted. The new school year starts tomorrow for me, which means that I'll be a couple of weeks before starting a new chapter… needing time to get back in the flow of things and all that jazz. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed!**


	3. New Beginnings

New Beginnings.

"Rinn Orunitia, you will stop this foolishness this **instant**!" a booming voice pierced through the air, jolting Rinn and Trent to a sudden stop just before they clashed. Immediately Rinn's flames were doused as he swallowed hard, looking in fear to the direction which the voice had come from.

The earth itself shook as a rather distinguished man stomped his way towards Rinn, an unintentional "terra" spell firing off with every step to properly display his anger. "To think!" he spat, fists clenched, "That my own son would be neglecting his studies **as I had suspected** to engage in some ridiculous, unsupervised and unregulated **brawl**?! Unacceptable! Intolerable!"

Trent looked from the rapidly advancing pillar of anger that was approaching to Rinn, double-taking at least three times in the process. _That guy is Rinn's…?_

"D-Dad, I can explain! Don't think--!"

"There's **no** need for explanation, I can see quite plainly what is going on here!" he finally came within striking distance of Rinn and harshly grabbed his son's collar, pulling him uncomfortably close to his fury-soaked features. "You, my **ignorant** son, have once again chosen to disobey me," he screamed to his son, "and **simultaneously** dishonor our agreement for you to devote one-hundred percent of your time, and no less, to your school work! Did I not make myself clear when I told you this? The **one** and **only** condition that you needed to fulfill for me, your apparently **overly generous and trusting **father, to allow you to come to this **wretched **establishment? Did I stutter when I told you this, Rinn?!"

Rinn averted his eyes from his father, completely helpless in the presence of his worst fear. "N-no… no sir, you didn't."

"I didn't what?"

"You didn't stutter, sir."

"I didn't think so." He released his son roughly and let out a hateful glare to Trent before turning back to Rinn. "Yevon knows how much corruption you've taken in from this accursed school… you're coming with me to see the dean of students about the termination of your stay here, Rinn." He stiffly grabbed his son's arm and pulled him back to walk towards the path to the school, where a grand and luxurious black carriage now stood, its driver waiting for the master of the house to return. Briefly he turned his head back to look at Trent. "And you stay away from my son, boy."

'.'.'.

Hours later, as the carriage was swiftly drawn away from the academy, the eight remaining members of the Leonhart dormitory, even the still slightly-wounded Jiece, had gathered at the front gates to say their goodbyes. The sky had begun to darken slightly, and the deep orange light of the setting sun splashed the scenery with unfitting warmth. They all stood in silence, all wondering how this would affect their lives at the school, and if Rinn would ever be able to come back. With each passing moment, however, as the carriage grew smaller and smaller, the possibility seemed to melt away. Back in the dormitory, later that night, Trent attempted to raise the spirits of his friends, openly betting ridiculous sums of gil that Rinn would find a way to convince his family to let him return in a matter of days. Caught up in the mood, the others joined in with declarations like "I swear on my life that he'll be back within the week" and "May Yevon strike me down if he doesn't return by next Tuesday", all hoping with every bit of their hearts that their favorite black mage wouldn't be long from his triumphant return.

For a few days, the spirit remained amongst the Leonharts. They planned surprises for Rinn in his absence, and a "welcome back" party for when he again walked through the door to the dormitory. However, as the days went by, the excitement faded. Soon enough, days turned into weeks and the faded vigor became doubt, eventually depression on the issue. The weeks molded themselves into months, and the months drudged by as life went on. It wasn't long before Rinn barely came up in conversation, and he was eventually forgotten completely… the only reminder of the mage being a stark, empty bed that would peak a quiet memory of his existence in the mind of the beholder for a brief moment, and then fade away.

As time continued to flow, stopping for no man as it always had, the first year of our heroes came to a close, and gave way to their summer vacations. Each of the eight left the academy with bright hopes for the next year; what would they learn? What would they be challenged with? What new experiences awaited them? And, in the very backs of their minds, would Rinn return along with the new school year?

The next year did indeed dawn upon them, and the festive air of reunion was pungent throughout the school... but there was no Rinn. Our heroes had already prepared themselves for this occurrence, and were not hard hit by the turn of events. They had already adjusted to life without Rinn, and it wouldn't be hard to continue the routine. Thusly, they continued to lead the lives they had within the walls of the academy, slowly losing any and all recollection of Rinn as the letters they would receive from him began to decrease in number, and soon stopped coming altogether.

Trent invented his own style of combat. Aran got his demonic tendencies under control naturally. Jackson learned how to summon without an incantation. Dieh began to work on a large set of removable bionic enhancements. Mina learned from Trent how to properly wield both a shield **and** sword. Jiece wrote his own rock music and literally changed the definition of "bard". Naru figured out how to switch places with anyone in an instant using ninjitsu. Paris and Gale, who had grown to just about the size of her keeper, learned the basics of flight. The inexperienced, resilient heroes-to-be we've come to know matured into strapping young men and women with pride, honor, and confidence as they went through the trials and tribulations of their second year at the academy.

Even the new security measures had begun to lax, and eventually disappear. It was widely accepted throughout Graphia that the new demonic uprising had be silenced before it had time to build up momentum; both Kei and Alucard, who were the only two demons reported alive before the scare, were slain by Nero Argus, Quayd's father. After two months away from civilization, without telling a soul of his whereabouts, Nero returned to the people of Graphia with his two close and powerful allies: a fighter by the name of Leo and a white mage called Eluria. The three declared their victory over the demons, presenting Alucard's crown as evidence of his demise, and have been exalted as the great heroes of the twelfth calm ever since.

When news spread throughout the continents, though, Quayd became as arrogant and haughty as ever, declaring his superiority both through word and example at almost every chance he could get… and it brought a flicker of a memory back to the minds of our heroes. They talked every now and then about Rinn, and how if he were still at the school, he would knock Quayd down a peg or two. As they reminisced about their former companion, the questions were eventually again brought up: how was Rinn faring back home? Does he remember any of the Leonharts? How is his family taking the loss of their status since Nero's return? And, most prominently, would Rinn ever return to the academy?

The second year of our heroes' stay at the academy came to a close, and another long, contemplative summer took its place in their lives. The world was contented and the hearts of the people, pure. As the months drifted by, some more eventful than others, some seeming longer than the rest, the start of the Leonharts' third year at the academy grew ever closer. With each of our eight heroes having counted down the days until their reunion, opening day finally came with tremendous excitement. It is here, in this new, near-perfect world, that our story continues.

'.'.'

"Take me away, to a paradise city…" a tall young man mumbled to himself as he walked down a densely forested dirt road, the bright afternoon sun boring through the small holes in the canopy of leaves above and leaving splotches of illumination on the ground as he did so. He held a small sheet of scrap paper, riddled with scratches, smudges, and markings of all sorts from constant use and re-use. He sighed and shook his head, spinning his pencil around to erase what he'd written. "No, no, no…" he grumbled, displeased with his work, "where's the flow? There's got to be a flow… think, man, think."

He kicked a small rock out of his way as he trekked onward, scratching his head with the graphite end of the pencil in deep thought. Soon, as was his way, he became sidetracked by anything that bothered him. His pack, stuffed to the brim with clothing, some food, a first-aid kit, a bar of soap and a toothbrush tied together with some string, a series of combs and brushes, a set of headbands, and a jug of bleach, was, as expected, quite cumbersome… especially considering the long, unbalanced rapier that had been roughly tied down to the back of it. The humidity of the day didn't help his mood either, as he found it annoying that he was breaking a sweat from walking slowly. Furthermore, he'd run out of the water that he'd gathered and filtered an hour ago, and was thusly thirsty to boot. Sufficed to say, there were many bothersome things to distract the man.

It wasn't helping that anyone who passed him slowed down for the sole purpose of looking back to ponder what it was they just witnessed, either. The man already knew he didn't look or dress like any typical dweller of the human continent, but was he really that conspicuous? As yet another fellow traveler decreased his pace to get a better look at him, he re-assessed his appearance in his head. He was about six feet, three inches tall with dark brown hair that he guessed could **maybe** be a bit long for a boy. Upon further thinking, he realized that the thick, bleached streak of his bangs that he'd let grow out down to about the bridge of his nose was probably one of the stand-out qualities that got him so much attention. That and the thick, forest green jacket that he'd purchased from a very "far away" place in his travels which sported a large golden circle with a large "A" in the middle, and two wings sprouting from either side as a design on the front, the word "Aerosmith" written in thick, gold, rounded letters below it. It probably didn't help that the jacket also had a hood attached to the back of the neck, either… a fashion that had never been seen in Graphia before.

The young man grunted again as he took the now thoroughly-chewed pencil from his teeth and began to write again, walking in time with the beat in his head. "Take me… down…" he scribbled the new word onto the paper, "to… **the** paradise city…" He smiled at himself as he sung the line in his head, pleased with the mental result that he produced. He folded the paper across, then again to make it a fourth of its full size and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. As he did so, he figured that another factor of his somewhat strange appearance was probably the fact that jeans had also never been seen in Graphia prior to his influence.

He shoved both of his hands into his pockets and let out another sigh, bored of walking. "Two days." He groaned to himself as a moist, temperate breeze brushed past him. "Two days of travel… one of these days I've got to think of a better way to do this." He looked forward again and took in the scene. The dirt road stretched out far in front of him, a familiar break in the tunnel of foliage waiting at the very end, a bright light blocking out what laid beyond that point… the end of his voyage. He smiled again at the thought of the rest soon to come, and his pace became slightly brisker. Again the man hummed tune of the melody he'd been working on to himself as he sang out the line in his head, and an idea hit him when he glanced down to the path, which was slowly giving way to the grass as the dirt of the dirt road became scarce.

He ripped the paper from his pocket and unfolded it quickly, taking the pencil from behind his ear. "Where the grass… is… green…" he mumbled as he wrote, "and… the girls… are… pretty…" he pondered the last word for a moment, quickly recalling a certain girl awaiting him at the end of his journey and nodding to himself at the truthfulness of the lyric. For a moment he paused and tapped the eraser to his forehead quizzically, nearly at the end of the tunnel of trees at last.

As he passed through the threshold to his destination, the next line came to him. "Oh, won't you please take me home." He said to himself, promptly writing it down at the same time. Folding the paper into a fourth its size again, he stuffed it back into his ratty jean pocket and looked up with a grin to the symbol of what he believed to be "home": the academy.

He put his weight onto one leg and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, cocking his head to the side very slightly. "It's good to see you again, ya big 'ol pile of bricks."

The path he'd taken emptied out onto the academy's grounds, namely the west side of the grounds, assuming that the front entrance faced directly north. Slowly he wove through the vast mix of trees that dotted the green landscape, each one sporting a distinctly bright and new feel in their color, kissed by the rays of the sun in the cloudless sky. While he wasn't one for clichés, the young man couldn't help but enjoy the perfection of the conditions.

He stepped at last onto the stone walkway that led to the grand front entrance of the Hero Academy, again stopping to appreciate the majesty and memories that came along with it. Surrounded now with people both young and old, of all shapes and sizes, the man could only wonder why he wasn't receiving the same suspicious glances that he had gotten while on the road; soon realizing that, with the kind of people that he knew had probably already passed through the gates, the crowd was probably used to strange appearances now. Some were young like he was, striding with confidence into the stone walls of what he'd come to know as an educational stronghold. Some were older and some graying, all saying their farewells to their sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, and more as they parted ways for the school year. Soon, though, his observations were interrupted with a harsh, strong hand that came down on his shoulder and whirled him quickly around.

The man was now face-to-face with another male of similar age, the top half of his face hidden in the shadow of his hood, which was attached to a somewhat regal cloak that the figure had donned. "You!" he grunted.

"Me?" the young man asked, confused.

"After all these years, I've finally found you at last!" the newcomer's voice grew louder, attracting the attention of several bystanders. "I've traveled over the harsh, freezing peaks of the coldest mountain ranges to get to you! I've braved the white-hot climate of the driest deserts to find you!" he pushed the very confused young man back sternly and quickly drew his greatsword, crashing the edge of the sturdy blade into the ground and simultaneously getting the complete attention of everyone present.

"I-I… wait, what? You've got the wrong guy, man, seriously! I'm just-!"

"Just what, the reason why my wife and two children have left me? The one who broke into my humble home three long years ago and **stole** the money that you'd lost on your own reckless, petty gambling, along with every last cent that we owned? Is that what you are?!"

At this point the entire crowd had begun to back away, not sure what to think of the situation except to stay back. The completely and horrifically confused boy began to panic and took a few steps back. "I don't even **know** you! How can I be this person that you-?"

"Stop right there!" The man closed the gap between him and his target in three steps and brought his own face very close to his enemy's. "Do you recognize my face **now?**"

He threw back his hood to reveal his features, plastering a look of complete shock on his adversary's face. His eyes were of the purest emerald green, shining with the same inner sense of justice that they'd always been known to. His hair, the most noticeable of his qualities, complimented them perfectly with a contrasting bright red, showing little or no attempt to keep it neat with the exception of a thick pony-tail in the back. The man grinned and shed his foreboding presence at the same time, drawing back from his so-called adversary. "How've you been, Jiece?"

Jiece smiled back and almost toppled the newcomer over as he leapt into him with a bear-hug. "Trent! You scared me half to death, you jerk!"

"I know, I know… what did you expect?"

"If I can ever stop myself from saying 'nothing less' to that question, I'll be sure to come up with a crushing reply."

"You do that."

Both Jiece and Trent released one another from their reunion hug and promptly noticed the looks they were still getting in silence from the people around them. Trent immediately threw his arms out as though presenting the world's greatest announcement and settled the situation. "And that, folks, would be a small taste of this year's school drama, _The Revenger_! Be sure to catch one of the showings when we're done with rehearsals in a few months, right here at our very own academy!"

The crowd, accepting Trent's improvised excuse as truth, shared a sense of relief and clapped loudly in approval of such a fine example of acting talent. Jiece laughed and clasped a hand onto Trent's shoulder. "Only you would think up an excuse like that."

"And only he would have the lack of common sense to actually attempt that stunt back there."

The two classmates turned to find yet another familiar face only a few feet away from them, laden down with the familiar heavy white robes that sported his signature red stripes from shoulder to foot. "Aran!" they exclaimed at once.

Aran threw a hand up in greeting as he stopped next to the two, elegant and well-gathered as always. "I see you two have already met your quota of mischief for the day."

"Nah, I could crank out a few more 'nefarious' deeds, myself." Jiece said self-assuredly, stretching with exaggerated relief as he did so. "Care to join, Aran?"

Aran let out a single chuckle and smiled slightly. "I'll just keep my record clean this year, if you don't mind."

"Oh, but we do mind!" Trent added in jest, coming up behind Aran and peering over his shoulder with every intention of breaking into his personal space.

"Yes… c'mon, Aran, we have so much debauchery to take care of in so little time!" Jiece grabbed Aran's hand and pulled him as Trent pushed, all three therefore making their way into the academy in one clumsy, conjoined mass.

'.'.'

The door to the third-story Leonhart dorm swung open as Jiece overzealously kicked it in, his pack in one hand and a single guitar pick in the other. "And that's how you open a door with no hands!" he exclaimed as he threw his luggage down on the chair nearest to the door, pocketing the guitar pick.

"Other options would have included keeping the pick in your pack, but I guess that's just me…" Aran replied sarcastically.

"Hey," Jiece eyed him with a mock seriousness, "you wouldn't be thinking that way if you'd been through what this pick and I have been through."

"Do I even want to know what that means?"

"Only if you want your head to explode."

"…I'll take that as a 'no'."

Trent tossed his trunk next to an armchair toward the center of the dorm and sat down to admire the new territory they'd been given as third-year students. The transition from first to second-year status wasn't much of a big deal, but the size of the dorm room nearly tripled from the size of the accommodations of the last two years; the reason being that there were classrooms that shared the two floors of first-year and second-year students' residences, and the two floors above those were devoted entirely to dormitory space.

Inwardly, Trent felt cheated out of all of the extra space that he'd been denied the past two years, but didn't care so much now that he actually had it. He guessed that was probably the theory behind the system. He especially didn't care so much now due to the fact that every resident of the dormitory got their own room within the dorm, as was denoted by the nine open doors spaced evenly on both sides of the living room, five on one side and two on either side of the fire place on the other side, that each led to their own, individual living quarters for the year, complete with an armoire, double bed, working desk, and windows.

"Just gonna go ahead and throw this out there…" Trent began, "I totally call dibs on-"

"The room closest to the bathroom? That's all mine."

Trent looked up to find the entity of blonde-haired, brown-eyed fury that he'd come to know and love as Mina. "You can't have it… I just called dibs on it. That's the basic rule of 'dibs'."

"Technically you never actually called dibs… I call dibs on the room closest to the bathroom. There, now it's settled." She walked over to that very room promptly after finishing her sentence and chucked her trunk and pack into it, one after the other, and folded her arms in satisfaction of her victory. "Rights to the first shower in the morning are officially mine, so ha!"

Trent was stunned for a moment at what had just happened, turning to Aran and Jiece in hopes of being backed up in his argument. Unfortunately for him, though, they both just shrugged. "She's got you there, man." said Jiece.

Trent, defeated, turned back to Mina. "Well… how about we _share_ the room? Then everybody wins."

Jiece's jaw dropped at how blatantly crude Trent's comment was. _How does he expect to __**live**__ after saying something like that to __**her**__?_

Very slowly, Mina walked up to Trent and stared him down, having an intimidating height advantage over him since he was sitting. She unzipped the thin cloth vest that she was wearing over her long-sleeve shirt at an equal pace, taking her time in contemplating her rage. Then, in one swift and merciless movement, she held the two corners of the vest, whirled it into a tightly spun mass, and rat-tailed Trent square in the face with a resounding "snap".

Trent recoiled and put a hand to the bridge of his heavily-smarting nose as an instinctive response to the pain. Mina unwound the vest and slung it over her shoulders. "Not this early, we're not."

Jiece stared in complete and utter shock at the fact that Mina had literally and openly declared the possibility of sharing her room with Trent at some point in the future, and suddenly it all made sense again. "Oh yeah, I totally forgot that you asked her out on the last day of last year… smooth."

Trent muttered something between his fingers that probably bordered on "screw you" as he kept his hands to his face. Mina came up behind the chair and leaned over it, wrapping her arms loosely around his neck as she rested her head on top of his. "Yeah, I don't get why he waited until the last possible day either, but… I guess I'm fine with it as long as it actually happened."

'.'.'

Before too long, the four Leonharts present had finally chosen their rooms and settled in to their new accommodations. They pulled four of the chairs together in front of the unlit fireplace to lounge until dinner, at the mention of which Trent began: "I forgot, is the whole 'welcome back' feast tonight or tomorrow night?"

"Tomorrow night," responded Aran. "Generally, only half the students live close enough to the academy to make it here on the first day of school… so they postpone it until the second night so that everyone can take part in it."

"Couldn't they just leave earlier?"

"Well, for the people who live further away, I guess they don't want to travel on a Sunday for religious reasons, so they have to start their journey, which takes longer than a day at that distance, the next day. That's my theory, at least."

"Well hell, how far away do the rest of us live?" Jiece asked. "I mean, I know that Naru lives in Wutai, but that's it."

"I'm pretty sure that Dieh is from Midgar, actually." Trent said.

"Yeesh, I don't think I could stand to live there… too many flashing lights and too much hustle. That's like **the** definition of a big city."

"It's freaking Dieh, what do you expect?"

"Point taken."

"And doesn't Paris have to walk here?" Mina asked. "You know, part of that whole 'share your hardships with your dragon' thing that they've got going on for dragoons?"

"Yeah, I think that's it… the distance is about an hour's flight by airship, but by walking? Phew, I couldn't do it… and that covers just about everybody except Jackson… I honestly think he just mixed up the dates." Trent shrugged as he suggested this. "Just seems like a Jackson thing to do."

"Yeah."

"Agreed."

"Yup."

There was a brief period of story-swapping amongst the group as they all recollected their respective journeys to the academy, though when it came time for Trent's tale, he merely paused for a moment before announcing the question that he'd been juggling in his head for the past few minutes. "Where was Rinn from, anyway?"

Before anyone could respond, a voice came from the open door to the dormitory: "the Orunitia estate is about a mile off of the road to Mt. Gagazet, in the north. Thanks for asking, though."

Everyone immediately turned to see a figure leaning on the doorway, completely hidden by shadow since the only light in the room was coming from the late afternoon sun, which failed to illuminate just that single part of the room, conveniently enough. "Miss me?"

'.'.'

**Well, that was sure a refreshing change of pace. I'll leave you to decide whether or not you like how I've chosen to continue the story, but it's really going to give me a lot more room to work with ****while**** eliminating a lot of plot problems I had that kept stopping me from writing, so… I don't see anything wrong with it. If you have any complaints with the info-dump between Rinn's leaving and Jiece's arrival, though, I can only tell you to be patient and trust me.**

**-Jiece.**


	4. The Spire's Return

The Spire's Return.

The figure was met by a resounding chorus of greetings from the four Leonharts. Trent leapt up from his seat and swept him off of his feet in one of his famous, crushing bear hugs and brought him into the light. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance for the third time, Astos!" he said, smiling.

Astos, barely able to breathe, was just able to squawk out: "Likewise… now put me down," he gasped for air briefly before continuing, "I didn't want this to be the day I die."

Trent obediently dropped his advisor, who then began to speak after a series of deep breaths. "First things first, I've been wanting to know ever since the end of last year: what are each of you sub-classing in?"

"No clue."

"Undecided."

"I dunno."

"Sub classing?"

The group all turned to Jiece in mild surprise that he was unaware of one of the biggest changes in a student's four years at the academy. He looked back at each one as though whatever it was they were talking about wasn't such a big deal. "What?"

"You seriously didn't know that we get to pick our second class this year? The choice that **half** of our education from here on depends on?" Mina was dumbfounded, though not too much so, at Jiece's obvious lack of enthusiasm for his schoolwork.

Astos rubbed one of his temples and sighed. "Jiece, I'm always surprised by your lack attention span… I really am."

Jiece stared blankly forward for a moment before turning to Astos. "What?"

Astos ran a hand down his face. "I forgot that we have to directly relate something to you for you to care… basically, your sub class is one that you choose to study along with your current class, and it comes from the same choice pool as your normal one, too. It's essentially your first chance to broaden your horizons in terms of what you come to school for, though some never take on a sub class, and some even take on two; it really just depends on what you feel is in your best interest."

"Alright, I'm staying a bard, then."

Astos furrowed his brow in frustration as Jiece's decision. "Well it's not like you have to **change** your primary class, Jiece, you merely-"

"Well I don't want anything getting in the way of me and my music, so I'm keeping it the way things are." Jiece finished smartly with a confident nod.

Astos sighed. "I swear, Jiece, you're the most irrational person I've ever met"

"You're darn right I am." He proclaimed proudly.

Eventually the warm, orange glow of the sunset faded and the group was forced to light every candle and torch in the room. "It's not the same as last year… it's much darker." Trent commented.

"Dieh wired the dorm with lamps and ceiling lights last year, remember?" said Aran.  
"Just wait until tomorrow and we'll be fine."

Trent continued to grumble at the less-than-perfect situation he'd been presented with, but let it pass. He walked over to the window in the farthest, darkest corner of the room and unhinged the latch, letting it swing open in a cloud of dust. He folded his arms and laid his head on top of them, feeling the rough surface of the wooden frame on his fingers. The torches that lined either side of the main path to the academy's front entrance began to light themselves, one by one, in order to illuminate the streak of grey amidst the black terrain of the night. Like any normal human being would, Trent watched the process out of a mixture of nostalgia and boredom. He'd watched the lighting of the beacons countless times from the windows of his dorm, originally with Rinn by his side. Even after Rinn's disappearance, Trent would watch the process alone as a form of commemoration to his good friend. This time, however, there was something new in the scene that caught his eye… a carriage.

Trent's eyes fixated themselves on it, finding it to be vaguely familiar. It was completely black; the front right wheel wobbling a bit as it gradually approached the gates of the academy. The bleach-white curtains in the windows were torn, one of them hanging loosely out of the broken window with its tattered ends dragging in the dirt. The whole ensemble was being pulled by a broken, beaten, and near-starving horse, jet-black like the load it was hauling. It weakly tromped out what looked like its final, pathetic steps to bring the carriage to the doors of its destination, pausing with great strain at the transition of the ground from dirt to stone.

A confusing sense of surprise, wonderment, and worry overtook Trent. He recognized the carriage as the same that had taken Rinn back to the Orunitia estate two years ago, though he also wondered, of course, why it was in such a condition. Trent being Trent, he shoved the second thought into the corner of his mind and focused on the first: Rinn had returned!

Immediately Trent rushed to the door and wrenched it open with a resounding "clack" as it hit the opposite wall. Without alerting any of his fellow roommates as to his intentions, he sprinted down the darkened hallway and rounded the corner leading to the main hall. Jiece stuck his head out of the doorway and turned back to Astos. "So… what was that about?"

"Since when have we known when it comes to Trent?"

"Point taken." Jiece walked over to the window to shut the panes when he noticed the carriage as well. "What… the…"

'.'.'

Trent slipped through the sliver of space between the gates of the academy as they slowly widened the space between them to welcome the carriage. He sprinted down the walkway with the utmost exuberance, overcome with the sheer boyish joy he felt emanating from his very soul at the sight of his friend's return. "Rinn!" he shouted as he came ever closer. No response came from the vehicle.

He stopped and swiftly whirled around as he came to the side of the carriage, walking to match its pace. "Rinn! Man, it's been two years! I can't believe you're finally back!"

Still no response came. _Must be a silencing spell…_ Trent thought as he reached for the handle of the door, _Rinn wouldn't mind if I just…_ he quickly pressed down on the grip and swung the door open, revealing a grim interior that he had not expected.

The floor was splattered with a dark, thick substance that had long ago dried and crusted the carpeting. The seat cushions were ripped in every direction, the snow white stuffing sporting a similar blackened and dried liquid; the signs of a life-or-death struggle were blatantly obvious. Shards of glass from the broken windows littered every nook and cranny of the interior, the larger bits of shrapnel buried in the walls. A small piece of parchment was presented to Trent directly in his line of sight, stabbed through the center with a knife just in front of him. Trent registered only two things: the spade symbol printed on the hilt of the knife and the dark shade of crimson that defined the knife's loyalties.

"Boy."

Trent looked up from the knife, still gripping the door of the now-stationary carriage with white knuckles, into the darkness. There sat vaguely the outline of a man… or something similar to a man. "It's a message." It said.

Trent stood completely silent in response, his face pale as the half moon in the sky. His fingers uncurled themselves from the door handle with brittle rigidity and he took a half step back. His jaw was left slack, not knowing how to respond to the shocking image in front of him. The figure stood up slowly and unevenly; his head occasionally twitched to the right, the side that also sported a bulbous, jagged shoulder much larger than the other and an arm that ended just past his knee in an indefinite mass of metal and muscle. "It's a message." It said again.

Trent nervously forced himself to reach out, hand trembling and heart pounding against his ribs. His fingers twitched and shivered with minds of their own as his hand approached the knife, almost completely paralyzed with fear of this frightful event. _This is a bad dream…_ Trent thought to himself. _This is a bad dream._ His hand drew closer to the hilt of the blade, inch by inch, more agonizingly slowly than anything he could imagine at this point. _This is a bad dream._

_This is a bad dream! _Trent was almost forced to close his eyes.

"Boy." The figure said again just as Trent's fingers had barely touched the paper. Trent looked up automatically to find the figure's eyes staring directly into his own, their faces mere centimeters apart. His features were thick and gaunt, his jaw was coarse and half was made out of some form of darkened metal. His entire face was riddled with the scars of a seasoned fighter, and both of his eyes were stark white. "Did I say that you could read it?" he asked with a hateful grunt.

"I-"

**THOK!**

Before Trent could even attempt to respond, the figure nearly busted his face in with a fierce right-handed punch and sent him flying back into the contradictive soft embrace of the cold grass behind him. He stepped out of the carriage completely and stomped the ground with a solid landing on his thick, steel-edged boots. "I've been ordered to test the strength of anyone who comes into contact with this message. It's only to be read by my killer." He clenched his giant metallic fist with his equally large left land and smirked as he called out in a gruff, deep voice. "Lord Alucard doesn't want just anyone to read it, you see."

Trent lifted his head and clenched his severely damaged nose to try and set it back into place. His success coming with a bleak "snap", he found that the punch he'd taken had at the very least allowed him to function normally again. "Alucard is dead, you idiot. The Red Spire has been dismantled… you're not fooling anyone with that getup."

The figure began to shriek out in laughter, clutching both side of his broad, sinewy chest. Standing like a giant among men at around eight and a half feet tall, even his laughter was intimidating. "So it's true, there are still fools who spew this type of nonsense around! To think that not only do I get to kill you, but I get to bring down the world around you as well!" He continued to speak through short fits of uproarious laughter. "It's been a while since I've been presented with such a perfect opportunity to crush someone, body and soul." He smirked and eyed Trent further. "And you're just a shrimp to top it off, what a time this'll be!" Without further warning the figure charge at Trent, shaking the earth around him as he ran.

Trent brought himself upright and met his opponent's charge without hesitation, his right fist ready to fly. "Say g'night, shorty!" the figure cried out.

**DHUM-SCREEECH!**

Trent clenched his teeth in pain, his own hand having met the metallic fist of his adversary at its full force. On the other end of the collision, however, the metal covering of the figure's right hand had been deeply indented and twisted beyond recognition from the force of Trent's blow. "To you, I might be some little weakling…" he growled through his teeth, "but I don't have to be a giant to put you in your place!"

The figure ignored the comment as well as his damaged weaponry and went in for a left hook with his other hand. Trent immediately caught it with his own free hand, invigorated at the obvious difference in strength between him and the attacker. "This should be fun!" the figure then yowled down Trent's throat as his organic fist unclenched from within its torn metallic bindings and proceeded to clamp down on Trent's right arm. Steam poured out of the metal clasps and valves that festooned his grossly misshapen arm as he lifted Trent high into the air with ease. "The Spire gives me strength!"

Without another word he slammed Trent face-first into the ground, then turned right around and smashed him into the rocky terrain on the other side of him. He tossed Trent's ragdoll body a few feet above him and caught his head in his enlarged palm, and then whirled him around in one great, circular movement down, up, and over his head to bring his skull into a harsh collision with a nearby stone. With no pause in between, the figure flipped Trent's limp form over and grabbed him by the neck. In one swift, brutal movement he let go and brought his elbow to Trent's Adam's apple, then fell back onto the ground, bringing his victim with him in a ferocious and crushing strike as Trent's neck was smashed between the cold, hard dirt and the thick, hardened elbow of the marauder.

The figure stood up and brushed himself off, looking down to Trent's brutalized, mangled body and smirking to himself. "Another one falls to Kourd."

Unexpectedly to Kourd, a piercing melody ripped through the night air and splashed loudly against his eardrums just as he began to walk away from the scene. It took a minute for him to register that the sound was unlike anything he'd heard before, and he turned towards the source. "And who is this?" he asked as he saw a second "shrimp" standing beside the carriage, this one armed with some kind of strange stringed instrument.

Jiece brushed his bleached streak of hair out of his face and set his fingers on the frets of his guitar, his pick in the other hand. "You ever hear the song 'Without A Fight'?" was all he asked. He began to play the song's opening riff with the miniature guitar amp that he had clipped to his belt.

Kourd couldn't contain his illustrious laughter once again upon hearing this. "Are you trying to bring me down with common conversation, now? Hah! For what reason should I pay any heed to you **or** to your little tune, boy?"

"A bard's song has magic properties, you idiot..." a voice came from behind Kourd. Shocked, he turned to find Trent standing upright as though nothing had happened to him; his injuries shrinking and disappearing right before his eyes. Kourd didn't even register that Trent had brought his fist back to strike out in the confusion of how he'd managed to get back on his feet. "Oh, and it's a **damn** good riff!"

**THWOP!**

'.'.'

**Well folks, here's the big announcement: this chapter begins the real plot of Hero Aca- er, The 12****th**** Miasma. Hero Academy was originally intended to be a prequel to The 12****th**** Miasma, but I got a bit sidetracked from my original intention: using the prequel to sharpen my writing skills so that I could eventually write the actual story. After countless trials and tribulations over the past two years, along with all of my readers' faithful support, I can finally get to writing the real story behind the material I've given you thus far.**

**You've probably noticed several loose ends that I've left flapping in the wind over time, and I'm now proud to tell you that we've gotten to the point that I can start tying them down and really write what I've been wanting to: and it all starts with this. So again may I say thank you for all of your patience and support; your reward is close at hand.**

**Sincerely and exuberantly,**

**Jiece.**


	5. The Missing Mage

The Missing Mage

Kourd hit the ground with a fittingly dull "thud", a small crater left in his chest from the force of the blow he'd received. There was silence, a welcome change from the chaos of the past few minutes… that's how Trent felt, at least. "What…" he began, "the hell… was that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Jiece threw his guitar onto his back and pocketed his fists as he walked over to the fallen body. "Just another spire-worshipper… this one could at least throw a punch, but it's just another faker."

It was then that Gana and Verikk came sprinting down towards the scene, clearly expressing their disbelief of what they'd heard had happened. "Is it true?" Gana was the first to speak, "the spire strikes again?!" He slammed his heel into the ground as he came to a screeching halt in the soft earth. There was a short silence as everyone found themselves staring bleakly at Kourd's fallen form.

"It doesn't look like it was much of a strike…" said Verikk. "Not from an authentic member of the spire, at least. What did he tell you two?" He was quick to get to the heart of the matter.

Trent, still a bit shaken up, tried to clear his throat. "He said mainly that we had to kill him…" he turned his gaze slowly onto the open door of the carriage, "in order… to read that message…" He pointed ominously towards the gaping shadows of the ruined vehicle, not daring to come near it again until he was assured of its safety. Gana looked to Trent, then to the slip of paper in the doorway, still pinned to the floor with the spade-marked knife. He walked over to it in his usual bulldozing manner, pushing past Jiece and Verikk with haste.

It came as a great surprise to Gana to find that, when his finger lay to rest upon the hilt of the blade, he immediately had to pull it back in pain by the shock he received. He withdrew himself a bit and clutched his wounded hand, eyeing the blade tentatively. "Did he say anything particular about this knife, Trent?"

Trent thought for a bit in the darkness of the freshly-set night air, a smooth breeze washing over him in his meditation. He snapped his fingers to denote a realization; "He said that only the one who kills him can read it, so I guess that means I have to do it." Trent half-walked, half-jogged to stand beside Gana, who'd stepped aside, in the doorway of the carriage. He looked nervously down to the blade, the faded image of a black and white mask flashing once or twice in the back of his mind. Slowly he managed to reach out for the knife for the second time, and found himself literally shocked by the sharp jolt of pain that he felt as he touched it. He flailed his hand around for a bit before settling down. "I can't touch it either? He said that if I killed him, I could read the message! Why can't… I…"

All four present at the scene slowly turned towards the "dead" body, which began to move its arms to its sides as though on queue. "Heh… the act was more than worth it to see the looks..." the mouth spat words from the corpse, if you could call it a corpse, as it lifted itself upright, "on those pitiful, hopeful faces of yours." The color returned to Kourd's features as he rose up, cackling quietly under his breath. He snapped his neck to the left, then to the right, grinning in pleasure as he heard the resulting crack on both ends. "You got the jump on me last time, that's obvious as far as reasons for my defeat go. But that's a defeat, ya whelps… not a kill. I've gotta draw my last breath for one of you to read that message, and that ain't gonna happen from some four-on-one brawl." He clenched his reformed iron fist tightly, causing vast clouds of steam to pour from the vents spread about his arm.

"I'll be back when I see that you learn how to respect a good one-on-one fight!" he shouted as the steam thickened, surrounding him completely and eventually causing his image to vanish altogether. Realizing what he was doing, Trent darted towards the white, obscuring clouds.

"Like hell you're getting away that easy!" he shouted as he passed right through the empty billows of steam, digging his fist into the ground when he came out on the other side with the force of his targetless strike. He ground his teeth in anger and hung his head in defeat, eventually rising again to meet his three onlookers.

'.'.'

"Forget what we're going to tell the student body! Damn what we're going to do with the horse and carriage! We need to figure out who this 'Kourd' is, why he was here, who he works for, and above all: what's written in that accursed message!" Gana slammed both of his fists onto the table in fury, his eyes darting from one member of his audience to the other. Present in the headmaster's office were himself, Verikk, Astos, Trent, Jiece, the headmaster, of course, and the primly-uniformed, newly-appointed head of school security, Fayt Denacrio.

Fayt sighed and pushed her reading classes up the bridge of nose a bit. "Gana, like it or not, we can't just up and tell the world that the academy was attacked by a member of the Red Spire… we'd have anarchy knocking on our front door. The king will shut down the establishment; he'll bring each one of us in for intensive questioning, and thusly send the entire continent into complete turmoil. However, we cannot ignore the event either. Rumors will spread and the same result will be produced, with the added bonus of giving the academy a label of disregard towards the safety of its students."

"But-!"

"**Furthermore**," she snapped as she re-composed herself, brushing a few strands of her dark brown hair away from her slim face, "denying the occurrence altogether would serve as the third and highest level of poor choices; if this whole 'attack' business was really just the plan of some lone zealot, the issue pass, but if the threat of the Spire has indeed returned, then we submit ourselves to being branded as liars, along with the other two options' results. It is because of this that we should not tell, ignore, or deny the truth… but bend it. The only people who witnessed this event personally are in this room now, and haven't had the time yet to tell the tale. Because of this, we should all agree here and now on a story of what happened, being sure to leave out any incriminating facts, of course."

"So we **lie **about a matter of school… no, national security." Gana said with a distinct lack of satisfaction, folding his arms.

"Don't be so stubborn, Gana. We all know that the chances of the Spire returning so soon after Alucard's death are almost too low to be worth mentioning."

"But they exist all the same, regardless of how insignificant they may be at this point in time. It's a risk we simply can't take! For the sake of the kingdom, we must speak the truth!"

"I'm in agreement with Gana, Miss Denacrio." Verikk pitched into the conversation, hands folded and composer unaffected by the heat of the conversation. "It's our duty as Graphian citizens to inform the king of any events concerning the Spire."

"Obviously you two don't seem to realize what this 'truth' is going to accomplish." Fayt was nearly at her breaking point. "We've openly acknowledged the chances of a Spire attack, yes? What is to happen to our name if, in all likelihood, this proves to be a phony scare tactic? I'll tell you what: we'll be forever branded as liars, warmongers… a private establishment trying to get some free publicity from what the world will assume to be a staged attack! Do we really want that?"

"Well I'd say it's well worth the risk if it's a matter of national-!"

"**Silence!**" the headmaster commanded attention from his subordinates with a thunderous roar. "We are to follow Miss Denacrio's suggestion. That is final."

Gana's eyes widened in astonishment. "But, sir, surely you-!"

"Understand that I'm diminishing the name of the academy by doing so? Yes, I realize this… though I also realize that I'm diminishing it only to those in this room at the present. To be frank, allowing the truth to surface, as our head of school security points out, will have the academy shut down for the remainder of the year, or possibly longer. This is something that we cannot afford, especially in terms of national security. It's true that denying the world the information of a Spire attack makes Graphia less prepared for the miasma, but when you think further, you'll see that we were hardly attacked… more accurately, we were threatened. If the academy is shut down, we're unable to fulfill our duty: to train the Graphia's primary defense against the forces of the Spire. And if this 'attack' proves to be an early warning of the next miasma, then will it not be better to have an ill-prepared defense from keeping this under wraps, rather than no defense at all by informing the king? I know that it's hard to take, Gana, but you must understand that we commit this wrong for the greater good." The headmaster's eyes locked with Gana's, conveying his utmost sincerity of his decision, and regret over the path that must be taken.

Gana's head dropped. He exhaled with dissatisfaction. "As much as it pains me, I must find that I'm in agreement with your decision, sir. You have the consent of the dean of students, Miss Denacrio."

"And that of the head of academics." Verikk said, giving a shallow sigh of reluctance.

"And thirdly, that of the Headmaster of the Academy. We'll discuss the matter of this 'Kourd' on a later date… as for right now, we must put a stop to any rumors or information leaks before they can spread. We are adjourned."

Trent looked up to Gana and Verikk as the authorities of the school got up from their seats in expectance that one of them would finally ask the one question he'd had on his mind. As the moments passed by in silence, though, he saw that it was going to be swept under the rug. He couldn't accept this. "Wait a minute!" he commanded, startling everyone present. "What about Rinn? That was his family's carriage, and it was covered in blood! How can you just let that slide? Aren't we going to do something about that?!"

The four authorities look at one another briefly before the headmaster turned to Trent. "Mister Cedric, there is no way of finding out for sure whether or not that carriage belonged to the Orunitia family. Besides, I've already attempted to contact the Orunitia estate through their communications glyph, but I was unable to obtain an audience with a representative."

"Well isn't that all the more reason to question this?" Trent shouted, clearly overstepping his boundaries when addressing the headmaster. "If anything, shouldn't we at least send an envoy or something to check up on the situation over there?!"

The headmaster took a few steps forward and placed a hand on Trent's shoulder. He spoke softly, though sternly. "I admire your worry for your friend, but such a course of action is both an intrusion on their privacy and a waste of our resources. We-"

"Sir!" an employee of the maintenance staff, as denoted by the cog insignia on his uniform, opened the door just as the headmaster was about to finish his statement. "You have a request for an audience from the head of the Orunitia house waiting. Should I patch it through to the glyph in your office?"

The headmaster smiled very slightly in satisfaction with the timing of this alert. "Yes, please do."

"Right away, sir!" the maintenance man walked to the table and addressed the orb set into its center. "We're clear, Livingston, patch it through." He said to it, placing a hand upon the top of the sphere.

"Yessir." A voice came from the orb as it began to hum softly, producing a warm, greenish glow in the room. After a few moments of waiting, an image appeared just above the table: one that Trent identified to be Rinn's father, without a doubt. The man wasn't too tall, only about 5' 10", and was wearing a traditional Orunitia family light-blocking hat, but Trent knew the presence all too well. He was both intimidated and somehow infuriated, having only the one, harsh encounter with the man to judge him by.

"I've heard that you tried to reach my home earlier, headmaster. I apologize for my lateness in reply."

"No, it is I who should apologize for taking up your time, Magister." The headmaster worked his way to the head of the table, arms folded coolly behind his back. "We've recently come into contact with a ruined carriage that we believe to be of your possession. One of our students suspects that it is the same one that you arrived in when you picked up your son two years ago. As a matter of school security, we must ask: did you and your son arrive safely home? And are you currently missing one of your carriages?"

Magister Orunitia paused for a moment and stroked his chin. "May I ask **why** exactly these questions are a matter of school security?"

"Unfortunately, Magister, we cannot disclose that information at the present time."

"Then am I bound by any code, law, or ruling to answer your questions?"

"No, you're not. I merely-"

"Well then, headmaster, I'm inclined to reject your questioning." Rinn's father folded his arms in distaste and spoke quite calmly. "By my presence here, you can clearly see that we are both safe in the confines of my estate. I'll be sure to tell my son that you took good time out of your lives and mine to determine the state of his well-being. Good evening." The image vanished.

The headmaster turned back to Trent. "Now that you have the answer to your questions, Mister Cedric," he said as he walked towards the door and opened it, "I have no doubt that you can rest easily. You're all excused."

'.'.'

But that night, Trent did not rest easily. He didn't rest at all, actually. Halfway down the academy's outer wall outside of his window, Trent seethed with fury over what he'd just witnessed. _That's no guarantee of anything, __**mister headmaster**__… I'll show you what a real hero does for his god damned friends… _he landed on the ground below after letting go about three stories above ground level to save time, shaking his hands painfully. _Note to self, don't scale walls without gloves ever again…_

Silently, Trent worked his way from one source of cover to the next, avoiding patrols and stationary guards as best he could, through the courtyard, the hallways, and eventually the side entrance's atrium. Thankfully, he found that the guards of the side entrance were the most lax; both asleep inside their helmets in the darkness of the early morning. _I just get past these two and it's a straight shot to the stables… man, this is heroism at its finest, I tell ya! The noble knight mounts up onto his brave steed and charges into the night in search of truth! I feel… I feel like-_

"You look like an idiot, you know that?"

Trent whipped around to the left to find Jiece leaning on the same column that one of the sleeping guards was. He panicked and silently put a finger to his lips with the most urgent of faces, completely shocked that Jiece hadn't already awoken him. "I'm the one who put them to sleep, Trent, we're fine."

"Oh…" Trent let out a great heave of relief. "What're you doing here?! It's one in the morning!"

"I sneak out all the time to write some songs… sometimes the guards even give me tips, they don't mind as long as I don't actually **leave**. But when I saw you I figured I'd play up a little lullaby. Now then; what're you doing here? It's one in the morning."

"I'm leaving-"

"Where?"

"The Orunitia estate-"

"Why?"

"Because…" Trent looked at his feet, not really having asked himself that question. "Because… I'm worried about him. We're two of the four who really got a good look at that carriage before Kourd wrecked it… you know it's the same one as well as I do."

"Well yeah, but you heard it from Rinn's dad himself, they're both fine… and he's a jerk." Jiece brushed his white-blonde lock out of his face and pocketed his hands, taking a few steps forward.

"Yeah, I know, but… I don't trust him."

"And why is that?"

…

…

…

"He was calm." Trent said grimly as he walked the remainder of the distance to the academy stables and swung the door open.

"Pardon?" Jiece raised an eyebrow, following his friend.

Trent took a few cubes of sugar out of his pocket and walked to the most recently occupied stall: that of the horse that had drawn the wrecked carriage to the academy's doorstep the previous afternoon. "Call it a bad first impression, but the Mr. Orunitia that I know explodes in anger at the slightest of worries! That Orunitia we saw in the headmaster's office kept a calm tone with his dissatisfaction… that can't be the same man."

"So… you're saying that the man we saw is an imposter, and that the Rinn we know and love is indeed in trouble?"

Trent offered his sugar cubes to the newly-roused horse, which cheerfully accepted them. "…yes, I guess that's about it when you put my thoughts into words."

"And why that horse? Do you remember the condition it was in when it got here?"

The stall's gate swung open as Trent led the horse out, revealing the healthy, brawny, reddish-brown Clydesdale in all its illustrious beauty and commanding presence. "White magic isn't just for humans, you know. I figured three things: first of all, that this guy here would have been treated as soon as possible by a medical team… I was right on that. Secondly, that such a recent arrival wouldn't have been recorded yet, and therefore I'm more likely to get away with stealing him than any of the other horses. And third, that this horse spends most of its time on the harsh terrain of Mount Gagazet, so it's bound to be one durable enough for any kind of obstacles I might run into on the way."

Jiece shook his head in disbelief, smiling broadly at his friend's purity and determination. "So you're really doing this? You're really going through all of this just to make sure that Rinn's okay?"

"Yup." Trent replied simply as he climbed up onto the horse and swung his leg over the saddle of the massive animal.

"And you know how to ride this thing well enough to get there and back without trouble?"

"My uncle is Captain of the Royal Guard and my father serves just under him as the Commander of the Royal Cavalry, as well as its most avid rider. I know how to ride a horse." He said with a confident smile. "And you're not going to stop me."

"You're right… I **do** want to go with you, though."

"Nothing you say is going to keep me from… wait, what?"

"You're surprised? You want to ditch school, break some laws, and make a cross-country trip on all because someone didn't act like they did the first time you met them? I'm a bard, Trent; this is the kind of thing we live for."

Trent frowned and look to the ground. "Well when you say it like that, I sound like an idiot… but-"

"Quit talking, it's on!" Jiece was already running over to the gates of the academy.

"Wait, wait, wait, I'm not going to keep in pace with your running this whole time, Jiece. You can't go if you're just on foot." Trent projected himself down to Jiece as his horse trotted alongside the bard.

"It's cool; I've got my own transportation and supplies right outside the gates."

Were Trent walking instead of riding, he would've frozen in his tracks. "You knew I was going to leave?"

"Well, I was going to do it, but... I figured you'd have the same train of thought, so I waited up."

"Heh… great minds think alike?" Trent wondered aloud as he parted ways with Jiece to trot around the gate and meet him on the other side.

"Nah, idiotic, hot-headed teenagers think alike." Jiece shouted back.

'.'.'

**And so the stage is set, I'm having a lot more fun writing with all of this new room to work in, so at the very least: the quality's going up. Anyway, I hope now you'll understand why the word "academy" isn't anywhere in the title of this sequel… I'm not backing out of this, there's no plot twist to this twist… we're finally going out into the world I've conjured up. After all, since my first sentence on was "****far beyond you and I… far beyond our respective countries… far beyond the boundaries of the realm we call 'earth'… is a place called… Graphia", it wouldn't make much sense for me to never explore Graphia, now would it?**

**I'll keep in touch,**

**Jiece.**


	6. Journey's Beginning

Journey's Beginning

Trent and Jiece had been traveling for a little less than two hours now, darkness still shrouding all but the brief splotches of dirt path illuminated by the roadside lanterns. They both knew the dangers of traveling this unmonitored land; they'd always be at risk of being robbed by thieves, subjected to the harsh elements, and endangered by the ever-looming threat of random encounters. These constant variables, along with God knows what else awaiting any traveler foolhardy enough to traverse anything but the main roads, would put an end to most journeys before they even began. Not for Trent and Jiece, though… Jiece had started writing a ballad about the dangers, and Trent was busy thinking up one-liner puns about them.

The feeling of heroism that had surrounded the two since their departure, spurring them onward, had finally run its course and began to dwindle. Pessimistic thoughts invaded the thoughts of both adventurers, like _What if we run out of supplies along the way?_ And _what happens if we're ambushed in a random encounter?_

It was after about five minutes of self-doubt that Jiece finally broke the silence and pulled lightly on the reins of his chocobo to slow it down. "Do we even have a plan?" he asked with a subtle tone of concern.

Trent also brought his mount to a halt and turned it to face his companion. "Yes." He said quite clearly. He locked eyes with Jiece and waited for a response, finding only a doubtful face splashed by lantern light. _Don't look at me like that…_ Trent thought to himself, _I plan ahead sometimes, too… sheesh. All we're doing is heading to a single destination, what is there to miss in the planning process? Hah! I bet he thinks I don't know the way, that's got to be it! Well, well, well, Jiece… um… I… oh crap._ "No."

"I was waiting for that." Jiece ran a hand down his face and sighed deeply. "So we have an objective, we know that. Do we know where to go?"

"No."

"Do we know anything about the land we'll be traversing?"

"Not much."

"Do we have food?"

"Bread."

"Water?"

"Nope."

"Nice!"

"No- wait, what?" Trent abruptly snapped out of his stream of negatives.

"What, you don't see it? This is the kind of situation that real, legend-making journeys are born from! Two young, handsome, valiant heroes defect from their scholastic keepers in search of the truth concerning their long, lost, and dear friend!" Jiece was making all sorts of grand, sweeping motions with his arms in an attempt to convey his passion over the subject, his eyes gleaming with the fire of the road lighting. "Together we shall brave the blazing deserts and the frost-bitten tundra! We'll strive through the brightest days and the darkest nights! Knowing that, at any moment, we could stray from the fine line between life and death, we press onward in the pursuit of justice!" He shot one fist high into the air and held it there, frozen staring upwards, waiting for some kind of response.

"Uh…" Trent began, turning back around to continue down the path, "You realize that doesn't work so well if you don't catch your onlookers in the sunlight, right?"

Slowly Jiece relaxed his muscles and eventually slumped slightly in his saddle before he answered. "Yeah, I guess… good speech though?"

"Like a bard's should be."

"Thanks." Jiece dismounted his chocobo with a swift swing of the leg over the bird and landed gracefully. He took the reins in one hand and led it off the road at a walking pace.

"What're you doing?" Trent asked from atop his horse. "We're not even within sight of the next town yet."

Jiece tied the reins to a nearby post and took off the lantern hooked upon it, carrying it with him further off the road. Trent, having no choice but to follow, tied down his steed and followed. They stopped a couple off yards off of the main path, on a beaten dirt patch surrounded by the dew-laden grass. Jiece gently laid the lantern down to serve as a fire. "At the very least, I want us to mull a plan over until the sun comes up." He said.

Trent looked slightly confused. "What about all that stuff about the epic, improvisational journey you were just ranting about?"

"We, my friend," Jiece responded smartly, "are not ready for anything like that. Now let's think… what do we need?"

"Well…"

'.'.'

About an two and a half hours later, just as the sun had halfway risen, the two set off again with their so-called "battle plan" in mind. Jiece, in fact, had taken the liberty of writing it up on a spare sheet of parchment he'd brought to compose music on. It went as follows:

_Step one: follow the path we're on until we come to a signpost, fellow traveler, or anything that could possibly indicate our distance from the nearest trading post or town._

_Step two: if we come upon a trading post, we'll temporarily work as street performers to raise money for however long we stay at the local inn, stabling for the horse and chocobo, water, solid food rations, a map, clothing, and any miscellaneous purchases we may come by. If we come upon a town, however, we'll work by completely odd jobs for local residents, then purchase the previously stated supplies/utilities._

_Step three: head out onto the road again once step two has been __entirely__ completed, always restocking on any supplies necessary (and by any legal means necessary) whenever we come across a settlement of any sort, just to be safe. Amendment: check map hourly._

_Step four: upon arriving at the Orunitia Estate_

Step four wasn't finished, the only thing following the word "estate" being a few spilled drops of ink. It was decided by the two of them that, upon reaching the estate, they would assess the situation and finish writing up step four by whatever they could learn about the situation. For now, though, they pressed onward- exhausted.

Trent let out a massive yawn, dramatically finishing with a satisfying "clack" of his teeth as he closed his jaw. "Tired." He mumbled.

"I know what you mean… we've been in these damn trees for hours." Jiece lazily looked about the forest-sheltered path they'd been traveling ever since they'd left the academy grounds. His eye was briefly caught by the goldish-white outlining that the sun cast onto the tops of the trees before he addressed Trent again. "I hope whatever inn we stay at has good curtains for that thing." He said, referring of course to the sun. His chocobo let out an aggravated "wark!" as he finished his statement. Jiece laughed.

"And good curtains in the stable too, buddy." He patted the bird heftily on the side of its neck.

"Wark! Wark!"

As Trent's attention was caught by the continued squawking, he finally got a good look at the bird. He was just a bit too thin to be a racing chocobo, but invariably healthy nonetheless; his beak was gaunt and pronounced, his legs of a perfect length and thickness for efficiently traveling long distances. The most prominent features, though, were his feathers. Trent hadn't seen them before under the shroud of darkness, but as they caught the sunlight he was nothing short of dazzled. The coat as a whole was very much unlike a typical, all-yellow chocobo. These feathers were colored a tangerine orange at the base, slowly becoming brighter and brighter through various hues of orange to canary yellow, and eventually ended at the very tip with a shade so bright that it could easily be mistaken as white from a short distance. Even more extraordinarily, the front-most feathers around the head and neck seemed to start from a much darker shade of orange than those around the hind legs and tail, which might as well have been tinted a dark yellow at the base. When he looked at the creature as a whole, Trent got the distinct imagery of fire from the assortment. Impressed, though annoyed, regardless, Trent spoke in protest. "Can you not tell it to stop cawing or something? Warks get annoying after a while."

"Hey, he's got a name, you know." Responded Jiece, expressing the slight distaste that he knew his mount felt at the notion of being called "it". "It's Dio."

"Dio?"

"Yeah, Dio… as in Ronnie James Dio? One of the most powerful singers in heavy metal history?"

The knowledge was lost on Trent, though he got the distinct feeling that the name deserved respect. "Alright, then, I apologize, Dio. I didn't mean to call you 'it'."

"Wark!"

"He's fine with it." Jiece translated. "I had to summon him to the school from the chocobo stall at my house, though, so he's a tad angry with me. But since we've been together for a few years now, he knows that if someone's fine with me, they're alright in his book too."

It wasn't long before a similar subject was brought, up, though. Jiece swung his gaze around to his partner. "What're you going to name him?" he asked, gesturing towards Trent's horse.

"She's a her, actually… and I'm not sure yet. Something strong, probably… and feminine." He stopped both his thought and horse after rounding a corner amidst the thickening forestry. There was a three-way split in the road, with a long-awaited signpost in the center of it. Trent and Jiece eagerly approached it.

Wooden, dusty, beaten, and partially broken towards the top, the post read out their three possible routes. Upon the northern-pointing sign was written "Selvi Outpost, 12 miles", the northwest-facing sign was marked "Gabor, 23 miles", and the last, directly-east sign had "Erott, 6 miles" painted on it.

It didn't take long for the two to make up their minds, knowing full well the dire nature of their situation. "Erott it is?" Trent suggested.

"Erott it is. Lead on."

'.'.'

"What do you mean **gone**?!" Gana slammed his fist against the nearest wall, shaking loose some of the stones that held it together. "They can't just be gone! We have guards surrounding the academy, how could none of them have seen anything?!"

Astos recoiled from the sheer intensity in Gana's voice, leaning against the door of the dean's office. "Your guess is as good as mine, Gana. I've got a few off-duty guards working overtime to look for clues, and I've sent a messenger down to any nearby towns to deliver word to keep a lookout for them. If they seriously just up and left, we'll find out how and get them back."

"Yevon help us…" Gana groaned, rubbing circles over his temples. "Do we even know where they're headed?

Astos replied with a quiet shake of his head.

"Hell of a way to start the year. You go and see what Verikk has to say, and I'll inform the headmaster."

"Understood." Astos nodded militantly before walking out and slowly closing the door behind him. He let out a deep sigh, intentionally loud enough for Gana to hear from the other side, and looked quickly to the left and right. He smiled as his hand darted into a pocket on the front of his vest, hastily pulling out a twice-creased sheet of paper, which he then proceeded to unfold. It read:

_Dear Astos,_

_I leave this note at your door knowing that if I were to address you personally, you'd completely flip out and probably tie me down to the floor. This way, you get to hear me out entirely before you have a chance to do anything. _(Following this was a small smiley-face). _I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving the academy for a couple of weeks to go see Rinn at the Orunitia Estate and make sure that he's okay. You might not have personally met Rinn's father, the magister, but I have- and trust me, I have very good reason to believe that the man we saw in the headmaster's office was not the same as the one whom I'd met two years ago. Aside from looks, I didn't see the resemblance._

_You know me just as well as anyone else in the dormitory, so you know that I'll be just fine. Seriously, don't worry about me… you don't have to send out any kind of search party or anything, alright? (Unless you're doing so out of responsibility as my advisor… I don't want you to lose your job). Just do me a favor and read this note to the rest of the crew, and to our late arrivals as well, when they… you know, arrive. If you do that, we're good. I'm sure they'll understand as well._

_So until I return, give my best to everyone back on the home front! I'll try to make it back as soon as possible. Wish me luck!_

_Sincerely,_

_Trent_

_p.s. You might want to keep your distance from Mina when you read this out… She asked me what happened outside last night, and when she didn't believe "nothing", I kinda told her that if anything major was happening, I'd let her know first. She doesn't respond well to lying, just a heads-up._

Astos chuckled with a hearty smile set on his face. He folded the paper back up and shoved it into his pocket, admiring Trent's purity of intent as always. _Go get 'em, kid._

--

**While not as action-packed as I like to dish 'em out, this chapter was a lot of fun! I'm trying to work on my conversation flow, so if any reviewers out there have thoughts on the subject, let them be known! Next chapter's hot on our heels… maybe even two updates in one day, if time allows.**

**Until we meet again,**

**Jiece**


	7. Erott

Erott.

The last time Trent had ever heard of Erott, it had been from his uncle while he was telling the young warrior tales of his battlefield adventures. Bartholomew had explained to Trent that Erott was a very small, quaint, old town that had never once exceeded a population of two hundred. It was rumored, though, that beneath the town laid the body of an ancient and powerful general of Rukafelth's army. Both sides came crashing down upon the site in order to fight for rightful claim to the land; the demons wanting to resurrect their general and the Graphians wanting to banish the soul forever. In the resulting bloodbath known as "The Battle of Greene's Hill", the title coming from the hill that Erott sat upon at the time, the Graphian forces were just barely able to repel the Spire after a grueling four-day battle in the town and surrounding fields.

Looking at it now, though, Trent was beginning to wonder just how much of the story was true… mostly the part about the "small town". The city presented before him was nothing short of massive, in fact. The main road was lined as far as the eye can see with shops of all sorts: grocers, gold traders, weapon stores, general stores, liquor stores, magic stores, woodworkers' stores, metalworkers' stores, down to the numerous street-side vendors of various, miscellaneous finds. Past that, as he worked his way into the settlement, was a grand, six-leveled fountain surrounded by various statues of what he assumed to be important political figures from the town. The statues were placed within equal distance of one another in a perfect circle around said fountain, which stood in the dead center of the market plaza nearly a football field in size. In short: this was a big place.

"When the hell did **this** happen?" Trent thought out loud, gazing in awe at the sheer quantity of people around him, busying themselves with the hustle and bustle of their mercantile system. For every one that came out of a store or away from a street vendor, at least three went to see another, and somehow the opposite seemed to be true as well.

"When did what happen?" Jiece inquired.

"This! These! Them!" Trent was all but having a seizure attempting to gesture at everything at once. "This is supposed to be a small town! This place is almost as big as the capital!"

Jiece looked at Trent, confused. "Erott hasn't been a small town ever since the Battle of Greene's Hill… pretty much every home from the original town has some story about the fight, and it grew as a giant tourist trap. Have you really never been here?"

Trent shook his head.

"But it's so close to the academy, how can you just **not** come to Erott?"

Trent shrugged.

Jiece, a bit of disbelief still in his voice, decided to keep things moving. "Alright, well, we've got to hurry up and get a map and supplies already… what should we do?"

"I believe we decided on…" Trent whipped out the "battle plan" and read from step two. "Temporarily becoming street performers."

"Let's think then…" Jiece stroked his chin in thought, "How about we split up, see what damage we can do, and meet back here in say… two hours?"

"Fine by me."

'.'.'

All was not fine by Trent, though, as fate had granted him but one skill that he could call forth to raise money for his cause. He stood alongside one of the city's canals, just left of the bridge which connected the merchant's district to the residential quarter, with an open backpack at one foot and a large mallet next to the other. "Come one, come all! Forty gil says you can't knock me out with this mallet in one shot! Help me get a hot meal and stable my horse by taking a whack at it, literally!"

Not a single person gave Trent a second thought as they walked by in the hour following. The plan, it would seem, had sunk. Besides Trent's impeccable endurance of pain, he couldn't think of any significant skill he had… he had thought of just challenging everyone he'd come by to a fight with a cash prize for the winner, but he then figured that they were even less likely to go for something like that if they wouldn't even pay money to smack him with a hammer. _What do the other vendors have that I don't? I'm on the street, I'm selling… something… that's all there is to it, right? What else could there possibly be?_

"You're selling yourself to the wrong crowd." A voice spoke out from a little ways behind Trent.

He turned to find quite the peculiar sight. Sitting on the bridge's railing, legs dangling over the side, was a boy not much older than Trent. He looked shorter, though, by about four inches, and had long, straightened, black hair that flowed past his shoulders. He wore a faded green vest over his strikingly whitened button-down shirt, and a form-fitting pair of black pants, complimented by his equally dark wingtip shoes. Over it all was an old greatcoat, which had faded into a lighter shade of what Trent assumed what supposed to be black as well. He held a gleaming pocket watch in one hand, attack to a long, silver chain that led into the pocket of his coat, and was playing with the hands with his free thumb while he spoke, not once looking up at Trent. "The people here aren't looking to test physical strength, and they don't want to watch other people do it, either. They're all merchants, artisans, gamblers… people who work with their hands and minds for money-making purposes rather than violent ones. You'll never sell 40-gil hammer-swings to them."

Trent looked to the ground foolishly, wondering why he didn't think of that before he'd started yelling out across the canals. He looked back up to the young man. "Well I need to make some money somehow. What should I do?"

"Humph, what am I, the master of the monetary? I don't know much out of my own field, sir. I just thought I'd give you that advice."

"Oh… well thanks, then." Trent picked up the mallet and shoved it into his backpack before slinging it over his shoulder, defeated. Suddenly a nagging thought struck him, and he turned around. "What is your 'field' anyway?"

"Me?" the man inquired, closing his pocket watch and looking for the first time at Trent. His eyes were almost instantly noticeable- a hypnotic blend of green and blue that created a light, clean turquoise. "I draw and distribute maps of this area and other, surrounding ones."

_Bingo!_ "Oh man, that's great to hear! My friend and I were looking to buy a map here."

"Really?" The man cocked an eyebrow. "Coincidence. But if you had money to buy something already, why are you on the street selling off your endurance?"

"Well, I mean," Trent was exhibiting an odd mix of happiness from finding a mapmaker and embarrassment from realizing how stupid his idea had been as he tried to stutter out his sentence, "I have a little bit of emergency funding from our combined pocket money, but it's not enough for anything major, so we just needed some more from the street performer thing."

"25 gil worth of emergency funding?"

Trent sighed. "Only 20… never mind."

The young man tapped a finger to his chin thrice and thought for a moment before jumping up and walking the length of the bridge's rail down to where Trent was standing. "I can't just leave a fellow salesman on the street like that when he's so close to getting what he came here for. I'll dock it down to 20 gil, just this once." He nodded happily as he finished his statement.

"Are you serious? Thanks…" Trent looked expectantly at the mapmaker and extended his hand to him.

"Pallov." The man said, taking Trent's hand and shaking it one, solemn time. "Nikolas Pallov."

As they walked down the street that ran alongside the canal, Trent described the requirements that his specific map had to meet. They weren't very numerous, the main concern being that the path from Erott to Gagazet was defined clearly enough to be read at glance. Other than that, it had to be written on something that wouldn't tear easily, and in an ink that wouldn't smear in the rain.

The conversation continued as the two neared the end of the road, marked by a small store on the corner. "This sounds like quite the journey you're embarking on. Luckily for you…" Nikolas said as he drew a rolled-up sheet of parchment from an urn outside the shop, which displayed several of a similar fashion, "I've been complimented on more than one occasion for the ease of use and durability of my maps. I take good pride in my work."

Trent held out his hand, waiting for Nikolas to place the map in his grasp. However, he was left wanting. The man cleared his throat. "You'll forgive me if I'm reluctant… I've sold my merchandise to some who turn tail and run instead of paying more than once, and I'd rather not repeat those instances. It's not that I don't trust you specifically, sir, it's just that I do not want take the risk…"

"Oh, I completely understand." Trent fished in the depths of his pocket for a few moments and pulled out two ten-gil coins. Handing them to the mapmaker, he promptly received his end of the exchange.

This was where things took a turn for the worst. Upon opening up the map, Trent merely found it to be a silhouette of Nikolas as he last saw him: handing Trent the roll of paper. Trent put the so-called "map" down to compliment his salesman on a well-executed prank, only to find him gone. Completely and totally gone- vanished into thin air. He looked to the left, and then to the right; into the open doorway of the shop, and then to the area all around it. Nothing was to be seen of the man as far as Trent's gaze would take him. _Did I…_ Trent thought to himself, _did I just get conned out of our emergency funding?_

"That boy is stealing my merchandise!" Trent suddenly heard a voice come from the window of the apartment above the mapmaker's store. The man in the window, Trent saw as he instinctively looked up, had a distinctive familiarity about him… something he couldn't quite put his finger on. He was pudgy, short, old, and had most of his upper body covered in a thick, grey beard, but something just looked all too familiar. "Guards, guards! Come quickly!"

Trent snapped back into the here and now. "Whoa, whoa, sir, there's a misunderstanding here, I wasn't-!" He was stopped by the spear-point threat of the two guards who had come to defend the mapmaker's store, both dressed in an assortment of brown leather covering their shoulders and legs, and a worn grey chainmail over their heads and chests. Slowly, Trent rolled the sheet of parchment back up, and leaned down slightly to place it back into the urn, then putting his hands up again in surrender.

"We don't take kindly to theft in a merchant town, son. You're going to come quietly, or you'll answer to the pike, here. Got it?" One of the guards said.

Trent nodded and began to walk in pace with the two, each holding on to one of his arms. Defeated, he looked back to the mapmaker's shop at which he'd been framed and saw the portly, bearded man again. His eyes were then noticed by Trent, as he would expect they would be noticed by anyone else. They were a hypnotic blend of green and blue that created a light, clean turquoise. Trent would have found the color to be positively stunning if he hadn't come to a sudden, jaw-dropping realization. _Oh you have __**got**__ to be kidding me_.

'.'.'

Meanwhile, a royal carriage was rushing down to the very city that Trent and Jiece had come upon. Its defenders were some of the military's finest, riding on the backs of armored chocobos. Its design and quality was of the highest level, costing well over the life earnings of one of Erott's wealthy elites. Its passenger, though, was much more valuable. In an attempt to create a stronger relationship with more populated areas across the human continent, the king had sent the three great heroes of the latest calm to cities all across the land. They were to mingle with the common folk, give a speech at the city hall, or just generally give whatever location they were visiting some free publicity. Whatever would serve to remind the public of who to thank for the calm, and thusly who to thank for guiding them: the king.

"I don't want to do this; I'm just going to say that right now." One voice spoke to another inside the carriage.

"Y-yes sir, I know sir. But the king decreed that all three heroes will v-visit different cities across the continent to-"

"Yeah, I know about the decree… but when it's only been three towns and I'm already bored out of my wits, I know I'm going to have a problem with this. I'll do it for the king, for all he's done for our cause… but I'm not doing it for fun, I can tell you that. Where are we going, anyway?"

"Erott, sir."

"Erott, eh? Isn't that where 'Greene's Hill' is?"

"Sir, yes it is, s-sir."

"You think that spire general is still down there somewhere? I'm itching to bust a few more demon heads, that miasma wasn't long enough."

"S-sir, surely you can't mean that."

There was a short silence. "I do. Ever since I helped Nero kill that bastard of a demon lord, Alucard, I haven't had a good fight. I don't think I've had **any** fight, now that I think about it. There hasn't even been a single random encounter that we've run into throughout the whole time we've been traveling. It's enough to make me want to kill a man… or an army."

The weaker voice quieted down upon hearing this, obviously petrified.

"What's the matter, cat got your tongue? When you've been through as much as I have, you forget that others haven't. Sorry about the 'kill an army' thing."

Another, more commanding voice sounded from outside of the carriage. "We've arrived at Erott, sir. Please wait for the carriage to come to a complete stop before-"

**SMASH!**

The door was blown off of its hinges as "sir" barged out, eager to get out of the cramped atmosphere of his transportation. "Alright, then, thanks." He said to the guard who'd just been silenced, stretching. "I'll take it from here." He looked over to the front gates of Erott, about to be closed for the night just as the afternoon was coming to its end. He cricked his neck with a loud "crack" and sighed with relief before he began to walk. "Let's see what Erott can do for good 'ol Leo."


	8. Bennett

"And so that's when you decided to steal a map?" Jiece addressed the end of Trent's story told through the iron bars of his prison. It wasn't a particularly _bad_ prison, mind you. As the stereotype goes, there's to be as little lighting as possible, a terrible stench about the place, and a distinctly damp atmosphere; none of these qualities were to be found here. Erott apparently prided itself on having some of the nicest jail cells in Graphia, in fact. It was dry, warm, had a reasonably comfortable bed in the corner, and even contained a small hearth in the back.

"No, that's when the mapmaker-"

"The one that was never _really_ there?"

"Shut up." Trent wasn't in the best of moods, sitting there on his prison bed, separated from Jiece, whom he held to be quite more worthy of a prison cell than he, by a set of cold, metal columns. After all, he wasn't supposed to be there, that man with the turquoise eyes should have been in there! "He was there; he just disappeared after he gave me the map. Then he reappeared as…" He stopped here, always having difficulty telling this part of the story since he found that it sounded quite ridiculous. It didn't help that he was on his fourth telling of the tale.

"Say it." Jiece pressed him for the end of what he believed to be a crudely strung-together lie.

"He reappeared as someone… else…"

"Someone else?"

"Yes."

"Fantastic, what an amazing description we have to go by there. Not to mention it all just makes _so_ much sense in the first place."

"Hey, there's more description than that! He- uh… He…" Trent couldn't recall for the life of him what the portly gentleman in the second story window looked like. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember what the mapmaker looked like either. He remembered a color… and that was it. "He's a dead man, that's what he is! I'm not leaving this town until I've got that…" Trent struggled to think of some kind of word to use for the man, whose appearance eluded his thoughts, eventually settling on "guy!"

"No, you're not leaving this town until you get out of this prison. Soon as we do that, we're leaving. No side trips."

"Well, Jiece, you can leave when I get out of here. Hell, you can leave right now. I'm not leaving 'til I've taught that guy why you don't mess with a Cedric." Trent folded his arms to more accurately indicate how stubborn he was going to be over the subject, causing Jiece to let out a heavy sigh and slump his shoulders a bit, resting his forehead in his hand.

"How about this: I'll go back up, find your guy, and bring him down myself. I'll bring you back your money as proof that he's gone. Then we can wait out your two-day sentence and go."

"I thought the standard sentence for theft in this town was a year! I looked it up in the prison record they've got in this place and everything."

Jiece wagged a finger at Trent. "You're a first-time offender, a minor, _and_ a member of a family with some serious political power. They'd never keep you in here for a year... they told me two days."

"Phew! That's a load off. In that case, go off chasing the guy who framed me… you won't be able to find him, and I'll have to come up in two days and do it for you. I think it's a better idea for you to use the time to raise more money, but whatever floats your boat is fine with me." Trent laid down on his bed with his hands holding the back of his head, one leg over the other, and squirmed into the most comfortable position he could.

"And if I do get him?" Jiece asked.

"Then we'll go when my sentence is up." Trent didn't lift his head up to speak to his companion, but merely gestured in his general direction with a free hand. "And bring the money back as proof, remember?" He made another broad motion with his hand as Jiece was nearing the exit.

"Yeah, yeah." Jiece called back from the bottom of the stairwell a few cells down. His voice echoed slightly.

'.'.'

Jiece never intended to search for the mysterious mapmaker. He was given next to no description of the man, except for the fact that he shared a "color" with another man, whom he supposedly transformed into. _A color can be anything… a shirt color, a skin tone… anything! Can Trent really not even tell me what part of the two men matched color? _Jiece grunted and grumbled within the depths of his mind in loathing for his companion's magnetism to trouble. _All I have to do is relax in the city for a little while, then come back and give that idiot 20 of the gil I earned today playing music on the street. He'll think I got his mapmaker and wait out his sentence, and then we can finally be on our way. Talk about a pointless distraction…_

"Alright, I can talk about pointless distractions."

Jiece turned quickly in the direction of the voice that had just spoken, finding the source to be a small hut. It wasn't a hut, really… more like a stand. The front of said stand, though, was indeed shaped like an island hut, complete with a palm-branch roof for decoration. Standing a bit awkwardly behind the counter was a bizarre individual, swathed in multitudes of different-colored cloths, scarves, and veils; enough clothing present to broil any normal person alive in an afternoon like this. The man, possibly a woman from Jiece's point of view… he honestly couldn't tell with all of his or her dressings in the way, lifted a wrinkled, dry hand and beckoned him over to the stand.

As Jiece neared the stand's owner, he found that the only parts of the _thing's_ body that was exposed, besides its hand, were its eyes, the rest of the face covered in massive head wraps. Quite honestly, they were very nice eyes, even. _Surprisingly young for such an old man… woman?_ "How did you know-?" he started, the hand suddenly pushing old with its palm to command him to stop.

"I am Rjavek Olum. I read minds. It's a living. Care to try me?"

"Err… I'm sorry?"

The thing cackled hoarsely beneath its rags, a few strands of grey hair falling out from the multiple bandanas around its forehead. "It's a gamble, m'boy. It's my business! Or… will it be **your** business, today?"

Jiece remained silent, waiting in confusion for the speaker to continue. The sun's dark orange glare was beginning to annoy.

So it did continue. "The rules are simple. You hand me a sum of money and ask me to tell you **anything** about yourself. You come up with that part- what I should tell you." The aging cloth-thing paused for a moment to let out a few hacking coughs. Jiece cringed. "Should I get your correct answer, I keep the money. Should I fail, I give you it back… doubled, in fact! What do you say, kiddo, think you can stump little old me?"

Jiece considered the proposal for a moment. He knew well that the art of reading minds vanished long ago, and remained an untaught magic. Regardless of how old this person may appear, there was just no way could he have been alive so long ago. He decided to take his favorable chances. _Nothing brightens up a day like doubling your earnings!_ "I'll take a whack at it." He said, proceeding to lay down a small sack of jingling coins on the counter. "Sixty-eight gil. If I understand the rules correctly, and you can't tell me whatever it is I'm thinking, I get one hundred and thirty-six gil in return, right?"

The thing nodded.

"Then I've got just the question for you…" Jiece smiled as his hand darted into his pants' pocket, pulling out a fistful of objects moments later. He laid them on the table as well: a silver ring, a guitar pick, an acorn with a smiley face drawn on it, courtesy of Trent, and a small puff of lint. He held out his hand. "I want you to place one of these four things in my hand… namely the one I'm thinking about right… now." _The guitar pick._

The overly-covered, "mind-reading" person sat motionless for a little while, pondering the words in Jiece's mind. It went through a series of raspy "hmmm…"s and "ah-ha"s, before it finally brought its boney forefinger and thumb over the countertop, clamping down on the guitar pick. Jiece was completely shocked, though more so by what happened next. The figure shook its head and dropped the pick, moving on to the ring. It picked up the silver loop, and brought it close to its eyes for inspection. Jiece, relieved, watched the mysterious figure with abundant confidence, eventually watching the only exposed part of its body. The street performer's eyes were awe-inspiring to the young bard; a hypnotic blend of blue and green that created a light, clean turquoise. He snapped out of his stunned state upon feeling the ring being pressed into his hand, and smiled broadly.

"I'm so sorry, 'mind-reader', but I was thinking- ow!" Jiece recoiled as the last rays of the sinking sun caught the polished edge of the ring and reflected directly into his eyes, blinding him for a moment. He turned back to the figure, rubbing his eyes in pain. Upon opening them, though, he didn't see the figure that he expected… or the hut. Actually, nothing from the scene he'd previously taken in was still there, replaced with something quite different.

A woman was there; tan, slender, and all-around good looking, her long, blonde hair sprawled out across the ground that she was laying on. She was propped up on one arm, which was covered with recently-inflicted scratches, and wore a relatively unscathed, black dress- an expensive-looking one, at that, suggesting maybe she had been on her way to a dinner or party. Most noticeably, though, she seemed to be absolutely petrified at the sight of Jiece, tears streaming down her face just from looking at him.

He had no idea what had just happened to this woman, assuming that she'd been brutally assaulted. Jiece didn't even think about the figure that had been in this spot previously, acting only on chivalrous impulse and offering a hand to the woman to help her up. She hastily pushed herself away from him and shrieked out a pained "no!" She caught her breath. "I don't have anything else on me but the ring! Please, please just leave me alone!" She cried out as she began to break down, weeping dramatically and, of course, drawing the attention of the next three blocks to herself and Jiece.

Caught in the confusion of it all, Jiece wasn't quite sure how to respond in the moments between the woman's crying and the nearby guard tackling him to the ground, arresting him for suspicion of theft and assault. As he was pinned to the ground and surrounded by other city guards, each armed with their spears pointed directly at him, he turned his head to look the woman; he unconcerned about his own safety, thinking that he would be proven innocent soon enough due to the lack of evidence, and was mainly worried about her own safety. She looked into his eyes and flashed him a wicked, joyous grin as soon as he looked over, immediately resuming her sobbing afterwards. It was at that moment that Jiece realized he had in his hand a ring that could very well be used as evidence against him. In that brief instance of disbelief, Jiece caught a look at a specific part of the woman. _So that's what he meant by color…_ he thought to himself. _I'm going to remember this, Rjavek! You won't get me like you got Trent!_

'.'.'

Two hours and one trip to the prison later, Jiece couldn't remember the name "Rjavek." He couldn't remember the odd appearance of the aging mind-reader. He couldn't remember anything about the woman that had caused his arrest. He only remembered that there was an old, short person, an attractive, scared woman, and a color involved in his apprehension.

Jiece and Trent were separated by a bed in their cell that had been turned on its side to create a wall between the two. Recently they'd gotten into an argument over what color it was that was so closely related to this person; voices were raised and regretted insults were thrown back and forth, so now the cellmates had merely resolved to not talk to each other for the duration of their incarceration.

This, however, did not last long. About an hour or so after the two had stopped talking, a knock came on the iron-clad door to the prison. The cellmates looked up, thoughts both paralleling the same idea of: _Who the hell knocks for entry to a prison?_

"Alright," a gruff voice sounded from beyond the door, "I knocked." There was a short silence following. "My way, now."

**KRUNCH!**

The sound of the metallic door bending and tearing into its new, spherical shape filled the hallway just before it came tumbling down the stairs in a mass of ruined scrap. Slow, heavy footsteps followed the noise, a prelude to the massive beast of a man that was about to round the corner and lay his eyes on Trent and Jiece for the first time. A guard rushed from the far side of the hallway to the staircase and stopped the beast just before he came into view of the cellmates, pointing his spear at him menacingly for a moment, and then adopting a shocked and horrified expression. He threw his weapon to the ground and hastily kneeled in respect, not quite knowing what to say. The gruffest voice ever heard decided to pipe up first. "Ah, stand up already. I get enough of that back in the capital. Sorry about the door, by the way… you could say I'm a bit intolerant when it comes to waiting. I'll getcha a new one, eh? A big charonite lock on it, too. I'm just here to kill some time before I have to give a speech or something over at the city hall tomorrow… couldn't sleep, you know? Figured I'd knock some heads down here."

The guard was still silent, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, dying to say something, but unable to find the words. He instead stood up and saluted, allowing the man to pass. He did.

When Trent and Jiece first laid eyes on this monster, they couldn't help but allow their jaws to drop. He was dressed in a special suit of armor made completely from colite, a metal harvested from the innermost chambers of a magma giant's skull, and only able to be smelted within twelve hours of the initial gathering of the stuff. It was used for its impeccable ability to reflect almost any type of magic, and was highly regarded as the status symbol above all others. However, the metal was mainly found in terribly small quantities as an expensive decoration for a shield, crest, or any kind of jewelry. Even this practice was rare, since colite is so dense that it weighs nearly one solid ton per square foot. Considering all of this, finding someone with the wealth and strength to wear it all over their body was unheard of… and yet there it was. The armor scintillated in the light of the torches on the walls, adding a brilliant effect to the ever-imposing presence of dark crimson coloration.

As for the man himself, he looked as though he was built for the sole purpose of taking over the position of Atlas. Every muscle in his perfectly sculpted body was no doubt as rock-solid as the colite he wore so easily, standing just over six feet at the peak of physical achievement. His eyes were of the noblest gold color, giving him a knee-buckling aura of pride. To go with this, his canine teeth seemed to be much more developed then most people's; you could instantly feel the sharpness of their elongated points. And even further still was his beard… if you could even call it that. It was more of a mane. From the top of his head, to his bangs, down the sideburns, and over the chin, it was all one jagged, imposing mass of black hair. Encircling the entirety of his head, combined with his other traits, his facial hair gave him the look of a proud, ferocious lion. It was no wonder that people called him "Leo".

"And what're you two down here for?" he asked, arms folded.

Trent looked at Jiece. Jiece looked at Trent. They both looked at Leo, took a long breath, and began.

'.'.'

Roughly thirty minutes later, the story was just finishing up with Jiece saying "and now that we're stuck down here, we can't do a thing to find the guy who framed us."

Leo, who'd taken to leaning on a nearby wall about five minutes into the telling of the tale, nodded with acceptance. "Alright, off you go, then."

Again the two looked at each other, then back to Leo. "E-excuse me, sir?" Trent squeaked out.

"You two are obviously innocent… you're a bard." He pointed at Jiece. "And thusly, it's pretty much impossible for you **not** to be kind and chivalrous to a lady. There's no way you mugged that woman. And you," he pointed then at Trent, "are a Cedric. You're physically unable to break the law unless it's directly for the greater good… and I can't think of any kind of world-saving purpose you could have in stealing a map. The one who needs to be behind bars is the man who put you two in here. So, I'm going to give you that chance." He turned away from Trent and Jiece, who were both blank-faced in disbelief that they had somehow earned favor with the aptly named "Graphian Lion", and beckoned a guard over. "As High Warlord of the human continent, I want these two released from this prison and pardoned of any crimes against the city of Erott. Immediately."

The guard, frightened for his life, saluted and bustled off to get the key to the cell. Leo turned back around. "That's my reward for burning a half-hour of my time in this friggin' place. Don't mess up your second chance, eh?" He smirked and headed for the stairs, causing a very slight tremor as he moved.

"Thank-!" Trent began as the slamming of the door cut him off. Only slightly disappointed that he couldn't have said more, Trent shrugged it off as he took a few steps out of his cell. The guard holding the door open sneered in his direction as Jiece followed, clearly not in favor of Leo's decision. _Damn criminals gettin' off easy… _he thought while his two latest prisoners also became his two latest innocents.

'.'.'

"So then… what exactly are we looking for?" Trent wondered aloud. He and Jiece were currently seated in a cozy corner booth in a local tavern, stalling to order their meals for as long as possible to stretch the time that they could enjoy the rest before they were thrown out for having no money to pay their tab.

"I guess… we can always try to reverse-lure the guy."

"How so?"

"Well here's what I mean," Jiece began, speaking over the dull roar of the hardy bar-goers. "We split up and walk the streets like anyone else… probably in locations different from, but **near, **the ones we were arrested at. At the first sight of some sideshow peddler, I'll contact you by linkpearl to come to my location… if you see something go down, back me up. I'll do the same for you, of course."

Trent nodded slowly, digesting the plan. "I like it… he won't expect us to be coordinating against him like this… much less think that either one of us would be out of the joint this early. The element of surprise is all for us."

"Shpeaking of surprises!"

The two plotters looked up to find a mid-sized, thoroughly drunken man standing just by their table, looming over them. He didn't seem to be a particularly well man… be it in health or wealth. He was clearly smashed from one too many stouts, sloppily staggering this way and that to keep his balance at the head of the table. His clothes were torn and patched: a ripped, stained undershirt with a one-sleeved coat draped over it and a pair of slacks with a soggy pant-leg. Either he'd spilled his drink at some point or he'd managed to accidently dip one of his legs into the central fountain of Erott. Regardless of appearance, now wasn't the time to be bothering either of our heroes. Jiece didn't feel like beating around the bush on this one. "Can we help you, sir?" He asked in a forcibly polite, and clearly aggravated, tone.

"Yesh. Yesh ye can." He spit into the ends of his unkempt beard as he spoke. "You see, it's my friend's shurprise party tonight for… his… birfday. That's it, birfday." He helped himself to the space next to Jiece and comfortably threw his arm over the bard, leaning in closer. "And I need a few coinsh to get him another drink, ye follow? I was jusht wondering if you'd be so kind… as to spare-"

"We don't have anything but the clothes on our backs right now, sir. Please," Jiece pushed the man off of him, eager to rid himself of the stench of alcohol and rotten fish, "leave us be."

The man took a few steps back and cocked his head slightly, not liking what he was hearing. For the sole purpose of being obnoxious, the man retaliated and raised his voice. "Nothin' but the clothes on yer backsh, eh? How **ever** do you plan on paying your bill?"

_Oh. God. Damnit._ Jiece thought to himself as he saw a nearby waitress, who'd obviously overheard amidst the sea of jabbering tavern patrons, rush off to inform the bouncer. Jiece laid his face to rest in his hands, not believing what had just happened. In a matter of seconds, they were approached by a burly man with arms like a gorilla's. "Looks like you two are gonna have to leave. We don't like freeloaders here."

"Can we at least finish-"

"Out!" The man bellowed, picking up and dragging Jiece and Trent out of the bar by their collars. He threw the two harshly into the night street, away from the warmth and light of the tavern. Just before the door was closed again, they could hear the uproarious laughter from those inside who'd seen it all happen. Seconds later it crashed back open, this time to make way for the man who'd gotten them thrown out. The drunkard landed on his side and flopped over onto a particularly rough patch of the road, coughing. The bouncer shook his head, "And you're not even supposed to be in here! This is the fourth time this week I've thrown you out!"

Minutes passed by in complete silence. On one side of the wall stood three rejected men: cold, poor, and hungry; on the other side was the welcoming atmosphere of the fire-warmed tavern… oh, how the three outcasts wished they could switch sides. Jiece stood up, silent. He looked at the tavern, then at the ground, and then the tavern again. Slowly, he bent down to pick up a small pebble and proceeded to chuck it with almost no force at the side of the building. "I quit. I'm done. Screw this town. Let's just keep going."

"But what about-?" Trent started.

"The thief? What about him? We're in one of the largest cities in Graphia… what're the chances we're going to find one guy? Especially if we can't remember anything about him! At the rate that this city is screwing us over, we stand to be no less than **dead** in twenty-four hours. I for one would rather concede defeat and run than lose anymore."

"Oh come on, Jiece. We have to stick to the plan! We're going to stay here and work together, more carefully, on a plan to make some money. We're going to stock up on everything we need and be out of here the next day, right? I mean, what else could we possibly lose?"

Suddenly it grew suspiciously colder.

**Tmp, tmp, tmp, tmp…**

The sound of running footsteps grew softer as they drifted away.

Trent and Jiece, hoping what had just happened hadn't, looked to the spot where the drunkard had been thrown out. As they'd feared, he was gone. They slowly looked back up to one another, mouths wide open. Trent broke the mime-barrier. "Did… did…"

Jiece snapped. "That mother-[censored] drunkard did **not** just steal our jackets right off our backs! How the **hell **did he even do that without- I mean I would've- I just- and… **AUGH!**" Immediately he sprinted after the culprit, soon caught up to by Trent.

"I'm faster, I'll chase him. You get up there and give me directions!" Trent gestured to a clock tower that they were nearly upon, just a block from the tavern. He broke off from Jiece and turned to mouth the word "linkpearl" to him, tapping his ear once to note that he had his already set. He turned back around and continued to give chase, just barely catching a glimpse of the man rounding the corner at the end of the path.

Jiece never stopped running in his straight line, and was now on a direct collision course with the side wall of the clock tower. Already having his strategy planned out, he quickly hummed a few bars from "Stairway to Heaven" and began to ascend the hovering, translucent stairs that he'd caused to appear, leading straight up to the ledge under the clock. "See anything yet?" he heard in his ear.

Impatiently, Jiece tapped his own linkpearl as he climbed the second half of his staircase, now several stories above the ground. "I'm not superman, you know! Give me a little while!"

"We don't **have** a little while down here, Jiece. I've lost him!"

"Okay, okay, wait…" Jiece stepped onto the ledge just as the stairs were disappearing and began to climb his way up to the top of the decorative, pointed roof. He gripped the very top with one hand and leaned out to see above the myriad of buildings he was presented with, the frosty winds biting at his barely-protected body. "I see you… and…" he focused in on Trent's predicament: he was standing at a fork; one road went directly east and the other directly west. There was indeed a man sprinting down the eastbound road, holding something. However, the exact same could be seen going down the westbound road. _Damn, damn, __**damn!**_ Then the next move came to him.

_You were talkin' 'bout your woman… I hope to God that you could see mine…_

"Jiece! I need a direction here!"

'_Cuz every time she starts a-lovin'…_

"Screw it!" Trent shouted to himself, deciding to take the left turn and running for all he was worth.

_She brings eyesight to the blind!_

"Trent, turn around! He went right!" Jiece relayed the information he'd gained as quickly as he could.

"Right? Then who went left?"

"That's a decoy… our man went right! Go, man, go!"

"A decoy?!" Trent yowled in protest. "What kind of guy are we going after, here?" he asked as he weaved his way through the empty stands of the bazaar.

"I don't know, but we're not going to let him get away. Looks like now he's heading towards… the red light district."

"Ugh…" Trent growled over the linkpearl connection. "Of course; it's the only place in town that still has people walking around at this time of night. He's going to try to get away! I need you down here, Jiece!"

"Already on it, keep a sharp eye out." Jiece again pulled out his stairway trick, this time making a set that led onto the nearest rooftop. _Need all the time I can get…_

Trent cursed himself for growing impatient and turning left before he received the proper directions from Jiece. Those few seconds of time lost had caused him to be chasing after the fleeting image of the distant figure as it turned the corner far ahead of him instead of someone he could fully see. He continued, though, always catching only the last possible glimpse of the man as he took another sharp turn down an alley or behind a building. Jiece, meanwhile, had almost hummed the entirety of "Stairway to Heaven", running from one roof to another to maintain his higher vantage point. Suddenly Jiece was forced to stop as he ran directly over his target in order to drop down in front of him; something he had hoped would cut him off.

However, the staircase he'd brought into existence suddenly gave out and faded away, causing Jiece to lose his footing immediately and come crashing to the ground. He did land in front of the man, but not as he had planned. With his face buried in the dirt, the bard had merely become a stepping stone for the thief, whom put Jiece's new position to use with a deft hop off of the back of his head. Jiece pulled himself up, nose bleeding heavily, and shook his head in pain before getting back to his feet just as Trent passed him. "He can dispel my magic?!" he shouted in confusion, futilely attempting to wipe away the blood with his sleeve.

Having no other plan but to give chase until the thief wore himself or his pursuers out, Jiece and Trent, paces matched, continued exhausted. _Obviously he's got some kind of charm or trinket on him that negates magic… _Jiece thought to himself as he gasped for air. The thief didn't seem to be the least bit winded as he leapt onto the metallic frame of a building under construction and began to climb with ease. _But those kinds of things only work against magic they've been preset to defend against._ They'd now made it back out of the red light district, jumping down from the building's roof into the lower streets of Erott once more. _So if we can hit him with something he's never seen before…_

Jiece stopped. Standing his ground as solidly as he could muster, he whirled his guitar from his back and took his stance. "Take this!" he shouted, literally rocking the earth around him as the tune of "Iron Man" echoed throughout the surrounding area. Suddenly the thief slowed down dramatically in the distance; seeing their chance, Jiece and Trent sprinted forward with renewed energy to catch up. The figure just beyond their line of sight threw down whatever it was he was carrying and reached into a holster on his side, pulling out a pistol with an oddly elongated barrel.

Turning the top half of his body as far around as it would go, he pointed the gun at his pursuers. "Good try." He said. He sounded much less drunk than he'd originally been… and now that they thought about it, he looked a bit shorter… and thinner. "Really, I'm impressed. You've chased me longer than anyone else ever has, and pushed me to my limits as a getaway specialist. I've got to admit, that was some chase. But it ends now." He shooed them away with a few dismissive motions with the gun. "Get out of this city right now… or I'll paint the very ground you're standing on with your blood."

"I don't think so." Jiece smirked as he played the classic "Iron Man" riff a second time. This time the thief was forced to bend over backwards upon hearing the sound, his hands pinned to the ground.

"How did you **do** that?"

"Well, the first time I played that song, I caused your shoes to feel roughly seventy times heavier, so you couldn't run. This time, I just did the same to your gloves."

"How… how can you use magic against me? I'm supposed to be-"

"Protected? Only against spells that your little charms have seen before. Good luck with that when you're against the power of rock n' roll. And now that we have you where we want you, it's time that we all had a little chat. Trent, if you would be so kind?"

'.'.'

After Trent had struggled to get a hold on the weighted-down, flailing thief, they'd taken him to the nearest inn and forced him to pay for a room for the three of them. Up on the second floor, Jiece locked the door behind him and sat down, breathing out a long sigh of relief. _Finally… real living accommodations._ He looked around the room briefly. The floors were wooden, the walls were wooden, and the ceiling was wooden. Quaint. There were two queen-sized beds perpendicular to the wall to his left, side by side with about a foot of room in between. Just beyond those, next to the opposite wall, was a circular wooden table of the same finish and two wicker chairs, both of which had rather appealing pillows resting on them. Now was no time to think about resting, though, as neither of them knew how long they could keep their prisoner in the room. Trent threw him down into one of the wicker chairs and undid the thief's belt, tying him down with it tightly. In the light they could see something about him that really stood out. His eyes.

_They're like…_ they both thought at the same time, _a hypnotic blend of blue and green that create a light, clean turquoise._ They both knew at that moment that this was someone they'd met before.

Trent shot up and pointed at him in disbelief. "You're the mapmaker!"

Jiece had had the same reaction, and had backed up a few feet upon the realization. "And the mind reader!"

"And the fat guy in the window!"

"And the hot chick with the ring!"

They both looked at one another, and then back at him. One after the other, they folded their arms in satisfaction. "Well, well, well. We come all the way here for a quick pit stop… get some supplies, maybe a map, and be on our way to find our friend." Trent, eyes narrowed, smiled as he retold their tale. Every word reminded him more and more of just how much revenge needed to be extracted from the man in front of them.

Jiece picked it up. "But oh, the plan goes awry when Trent gets put in the slammer for 'stealing' a blank piece of parchment. Thank Yevon the shopkeeper was on hand to point out the crime to the guards, or else he may have gotten away!"

"And when Jiece was kind enough to offer to get the money back that Trent had lost in his purchase, guess whom he comes along? A mind reader! But what happened, exactly? Did Jiece get framed and arrested for stealing what was already his? Thank goodness the woman was loud enough for the guards to hear her wailing and arrest that dastardly bard!"

"And so we get lucky enough to be released from prison by the Graphian Lion **himself**, and what do we get? Kicked out of a tavern. And if that's not bad enough, we got the pleasure of freezing to death without our jackets as they were conveniently **stolen** right off our backs."

"And now…" Trent took a few steps towards the increasingly uncomfortable thief, tied to his chair, and leaned in. "Mister Pallov… we're going to get our revenge."

Jiece suddenly lost the mood upon hearing this come from Trent. He cocked an eyebrow. "You mean Olum."

Trent stood up straight again and turned to Jiece. "No… what are you saying? I got his name already from the first time I found him. He said it was Nikolas. Nikolas Pallov. He's a lying, cheating, thieving mapmaker."

"Uh… you'd better get your ears checked, Trent. I know I heard him say his name was Rjavek Olum, definitely. And the mapmaker thing is just a cover; he's a mind-reader."

"How do you know he's a mind-reader? That might be the cover!"

"How did he know to say he was a mapmaker? He read your mind and knew you needed a map! That's how he roped you in so easily! Rjavek is a mind-reader, I'm telling you!"

"**Nikolas** is a mapmaker!"

"Stop it!" The thief broke into the argument and hung his head. "Stop arguing, already. My real name isn't Rjavek **or** Nikolas." The scruff that his drunken alter-ego had grown out began to recede into his face, disappearing completely. His facial features visibly thinned out from its gaunt appearance into a much more delicate one. At the same time, his messy, short, brown hair began to lengthen in the front, down to his shoulders, and slowly turn white as snow. His eyes, however, remained the same. His clothes began to repair and dry themselves as well, becoming a pair of light brown pants with a slightly darker, open coat that reached down to his knees, with a plain, white shirt underneath. Even his shoddy, broken shoes fixed themselves into a respectable pair of dark brown boots. "My real name is Bennett Greene. And I think I've made a terrible mistake."

--

**Phew, you guys don't know how long I've wanted to get Bennett into this storyline. I'm not going to go into particulars about the guy, even though I want to, so just know that I'm pretty pumped now. As for reasons concerning this chapter's lateness, can you blame me? Christmas, New Year's, and my birthday all in the same three-week period… madness!**

**Cheers, Jiece.**


	9. The Greene Thief

"You bet your ass you made a terrible mistake: messing with us!" Jiece grabbed Bennett's collar with both of his hands and yanked him upright out of the chair, pulling him closer. "And now we're gonna put you in your place, thief." With one fist clenching the thief's shirt and the other winding up for a punch, Jiece smirked darkly at the thought of revenge.

"Wait!" Trent stepped in between the two and took the punch head-on… literally. Of course, this caused Jiece significantly more pain than it did Trent. He reeled back in shock, clenching his hand and swearing profusely at Trent's noble tendencies. "He looks sincerely regretful, so I don't think that playing a few tricks on us is his 'terrible mistake'. Let's hear him out."

He turned to Bennett and motioned for him to continue. The thief cleared his throat and sat back down, breathing a sigh of relief that his face remained un-punched for now. "Alright, I'll start from the beginning. You've heard of the Battle of Greene's Hill, right?"

Trent nodded; Jiece gave a discontented grunt that supposedly meant "yes".

"That makes this a bit easier, then. As with any town that hosted a major military conflict, the tourism business began booming a few years following. The hill that the town of Erott was built upon, named after the founding family, Greene, had soon completely disappeared under layers and layers of cement and lumber. And as the city grew, its formerly good morals sunk… low. With each liquor store, gambling house, and red light establishment built, the humble demeanor of the townsfolk faded more and more. The last to give in to the corruption were, of course, the Greene's. But even they now have become servants of this rotten city… some even the masters of it. My father owns one of the most lucrative casinos in town, and my mother co-owns and operates the ever-so-popular whore house, 'Rose', in the northern district. Her own daughter, my sister, is one of the top girls there. It all makes me sick."

He took a moment to regain himself, relaxing the white-knuckled fists he'd unwittingly clenched in anger during his telling. "The Greene's were a family of artisans… we were blacksmiths and carpenters, cobblers and leatherworkers. Now we're a wretched band of swindlers, pimps, conmen, and dealers. So I do what I can to oppose it, fighting fire with fire. I go around conning and stealing from tourists and merchants, taking what I need and donating everything else to any historical cause I can find. In my furor, though, it looks like I misjudged you two. I'd thought you were just a couple of cheap performers-for-hire, based on your conversation earlier today about getting money through street shows..."

"Wait, you've been spying on us ever since we first came in?" Trent was strangely honored, yet frightened, that someone had taken such time out of their day just to observe him.

"Well… I like to keep tabs on everyone in the city. I could tell you the name and profession of anyone you could point to in this whole place, so naturally, when a couple of new arrivals waltz in, I immediately set to work. Had I known your end goal was merely to locate a friend of yours, I wouldn't have-"

"Had us thrown in jail?" Jiece snapped bitterly.

Bennett lowered his head. "Well, yes… that. My desire to take vengeance upon the corrupt people of this city has apparently blinded my ability to discern the good from the bad. And for my mistake, I'm heartily sorry."

Suddenly a forceful series of knocks were heard at the door, interrupting the conversation as Bennett, Jiece, and Trent all looked to the entrance of the room. "Trent Cedric and Jiece Urashima, this is the 17th squad of the Erott guardsmen. We've been commissioned by the Headmaster of the Hero Academy to escort you back **immediately**! You have ten seconds to open this door. Ten."

"Damnit!" Jiece exclaimed. "I wouldn't have ever dreamed they'd find us this quickly! We need to get out of here, now!"

"Seven."

Bennett sprung into action. "I know every route in and out of this city. Follow me."

"Five."

The thief hurriedly threw open the window of the hotel room and beckoned his companions over. "Climb up onto the roof, I'll meet you there."

"Three."

Trent stopped with one foot on the windowsill, Jiece having just finished scurrying outside. "How're you gonna get out?" he asked, concerned.

"Just go!" Bennett nearly had to push Trent out of the window, quickly closing it behind him and turning to face the door.

"One."

**SLAM!**

The door swung open with a force that caused the knob to put a dent in the opposite wall, revealing four heavily armed city guards, each carrying a threatening partisan spear. Their audience, however, was not amused. And upon finding out just who their audience was, neither were the guards. Before them stood the great Graphian Lion, fully adorned in his colite armor, with a distinct look of discontent plastered onto his rugged features. "I finally get away from my god damned advisors and personal guard… and what do I get? A room full of military goons?" He advanced slowly on the squadron of guards, petrified beyond any definition of the word they'd previously known. "Ya'll picked the wrong damn day to barge in on me. I'm gonna give **you** to the count of ten to lay down your weapons and get the hell out of here. One-"

And they were gone before he could blink.

Just as shocked as the guards, Jiece and Trent again found themselves with wide-open jaws at the sight of Leo as he climbed out of the window and joined them on the roof. "In this form I should be able to keep you two out of harm's way long enough for you to get out of the city. I can take care of any resupplying needs you might have, so don't worry about staying here any longer… it looks like it's too risky for you now."

"What? Oh… _oh_!" It took a little while for what he was seeing to click with Trent completely. "It's just you… right. Had me worried there for a second. How are you doing that, anyway?"

"It's just a skill I've acquired over the years of getting back at this place… sometimes you run into the wrong people, and you need to 'disappear'. I find the best way to do that is to hide in plain sight." Bennett, in the form of Leo, beckoned them to follow him as he began to walk the length of the roof.

'.'.'

After a few minutes, they'd taken to traveling on solid ground once more. Time and time again guards in search of the two fugitives would rush the group to capture them, only to be sent back by Bennett in disguise. The dim torches in the distance were put out one by one as word got around the city guards that Jiece and Trent were already being escorted back to the academy by Leo himself, and soon the search was called off completely. Trent breathed a sigh of relief when the echoing cries of "report!" and "over there!" had finally died, and his safety assured. In all of the earlier excitement, though, none of them had remembered the real danger that awaited them in the darkened city.

The danger was impossible to miss, standing in the dead center of the open gates of Erott, arms folded. Trent, Jiece, and Bennett were hard-pressed to see who it was standing in their way at first, but froze instantaneously when they realized that it was none other than the real Graphian Lion. There was silence. Would he let them pass? Would he take them to the city prison? In the midst of irrational fear, they even went as far as to wonder if he would kill them.

"Well this isn't something ya see every day." He finally said. "A dishonorable bard, a lying Cedric, and... me?" he laughed at the imposter. "You three sure are in a heap of trouble, I can tell you that much… especially since I let two of you out of prison just earlier today on the understanding that you wouldn't do anything… illegal."

There was still silence on the other side of the conversation.

"When I heard about there being a couple of fugitives in town that needed bringing in, I figured I was lucky to get an opportunity for some entertainment. But imagine my surprise when I later learned that it was you two I was after… how disappointing." He unfolded his arms and took a couple of steps towards the group. "And now I see that not only did you lie to me, but you're also aiding a convicted criminal in escaping the city limits!"

At this Bennett snapped back into focus. "Who said anything about escaping? I'm not leaving this city until I bring it back to its former glory!"

"I'm sure you're gonna do a lot of good from behind bars, kid." Leo smirked. "Guards!" he shouted, seemingly illuminating the road with his booming voice. In reality, though, the light came from the blazing torches of the city guardsmen, who came pouring out of every door, alley, and window on the street into a great circle of flame and sword around Bennett, Trent, and Jiece. They jeered their prey with cries like "we finally gotcha, punks!" and "prepare to face the gallows, thief!" until Leo held a hand up for silence.

"Bennett Greene, I'm well aware of your endeavors." He began as he broke into the circle with the surrounded fugitives. "You want to stay in Erott and rebuild it from the inside out, right? Ha! How cocky can you get? Your brand of confidence is a rare one… one born from complete safety. You think you're invincible, right? That you can't get caught? That you can take on the world without consequence? Well take a look around you, you're done. I've got footmen surrounding you, archers on the roofs, and mages on the balconies of every building within six blocks. So what does that make you?"

Bennett looked all around him, seeing that there was no way out this time. He stood there in silence for a little while, realizing for the first time in many years just how vulnerable he was. He became smaller as this dawned on him, literally. Reverting back to his true appearance, he felt like he could cry… there was no hope for the city now. Leo heckled him from the far side of the circle, "I'm waiting."

The thief took a deep breath as he stared at the floor. "Caught."

"And what does one do when they're caught?"

_They give up…_ he thought to himself, unable to speak the words. _They lose… I lose… if I go, there's nothing to stop the city from giving into the corruption completely. Erott, my city… where I spent my childhood growing up in fear of every street corner, hoping that one day I could bring good back into my family… into my neighborhood… into my city._ Slowly he brought up his arms until they were pointed straight out in front of him, ready to accept the shackles that awaited him. "They…" he began, stuttering over his words. "They… give…" The last word remained unspoken, as though it were stuck in his throat. _I can't give up, I just can't! Even if the battle has been won by this so-called Hero, there's still a war to be fought._ He fell to his knees and put his palms to the ground, his head bowed to the victor and staring at the bleak street. "In." the word finally came out, quickly and painfully.

Leo smiled as he walked over to Bennett, submissively presented on his hands and knees. "That's right, they give in."

_It's not over… I won't let it end like this. Erott is lost for now, but I'll return one day to make it right again. I'll be faster, smarter, and stronger… I'll become a beacon of light in the darkness that has taken my home. This, I swear!_

Leo bent down and grabbed Bennett's wrist tightly, yanking him into the air with ease. The Lion's prize was presented, hanging limply for all to see. The guards cheered at their conquest; finally the most wanted criminal in the history of Erott was captured! Leo laughed triumphantly as he held the criminal there, basking in the praise that was so willingly bestowed onto him by his subordinates. The victory fanfare was so explosive that even the hero himself seemed to glow, and soon they all found out just why that was. The cheering died down among the ranks of guards in a rippling effect, all of them staring at the ground just below Leo and Bennett. It was indeed faintly glowing, the source being two pinpoints of light where Bennett's hands had previously been. Leo looked up to him, expecting an answer. Instead he found a grin.

"I give in to no one!" Bennett yelled as the light quickly became intense, blinding the scene's onlookers.

**THOOM!!**

Massive pillars of billowing black smoke began to pour through the streets and into the sky, blocking any and every source of light. Leo, knowing not to panic and keep a firm grip on his target, began to bark orders. "All units, close your eyes to avoid blinding! Don't move, the smoke will just spread! Raise your shields and form a barricade as best you can so that the bard and fighter don't escape, I've got a hold on the thief! Mages, get to work on dispelling this curse! Archers, light your arrows as torches and try to burn it away!"

As the minutes passed by, the thick cover of the smoke was slowly whisked away by the combined efforts of Leo's forces. Soon enough, vision became possible again and the remaining clouds shuffled down the alleys to dissipate alone. To his surprise, Leo found himself holding on to one of the younger guards, dressed in the thief's clothing. With a weight almost identical to Bennett's, the guard took his place flawlessly in the cover of the dark.

Leo's expression went from surprised to grim, and then, amazingly, to joyful. He began to laugh uproariously as he dropped the unconscious guard on the ground, causing confusion amongst those present to witness the event. "Now **this-**!" he yowled into the night air, facing the empty gateway out of the city, "**this** is entertainment!"

'.'.'

"So he failed to capture them, then?"

"Yes, my lord. They were aided by a thief native to the city in their escape."

"They won't stop long in any city now, after that performance… there won't be enough time to send an agent to their location by the time we find out where they are. Contact that charming goblin of ours… have him release the monsters along their projected route to Gagazet."

"My lord, won't that bring suspicion of our existence in the calm?"

"Heh… we've been biding our time and resources for two sleepless years… I'm ready to begin."

"Yes, Lord Alucard."


	10. Friendship and Fear

**Friendship and Fear.**

Trent opened his eyes to an unforgiving orange light, shining as though aimed directly into his eyes. He put his arm in the way of the glare and rolled over to the side, unwilling to endure such discomforts as the setting sun's rays on top of everything else that had occurred. He'd much rather lay in the shade as he was, in the surrounding patch of soft, cool grass. He sighed with relief and put his arm back down on the ground. It was quiet; the humidity was a bit much for Trent, but he'd get over it with time. He figured that it was going to get colder soon enough, so he may as well enjoy the warmer weather while he could. Conveniently as he thought this, a migrating bird happened to pass him by with a fading twitter, rushing towards the south in preparation for the same weather that Trent was so looking forward to. Silently he wished the bird luck in his journey for survival, and then returned to his empty-minded state of rest. _This is nice…_ he thought.

And then something occurred to Trent that hadn't before.

_Why am I on the ground? Actually, why was I just sleeping? Why is it afternoon when it was just night? Or was it night? I can't remember… I can't remember anything, actually._ He remained still, lying in the shade of a nearby grove. Trent was puzzled. _Jiece and I left the academy, came to the crossroads, went to Erott, started to work as street performers, and… I have no idea what happened after that._ It was as though there was a wall in between Trent's conscious thought and his memory, denying him access to the past day. Again and again he walked through the streets, found the corner near the bridge, turned around and then lost the image. _That's really weird, I-_

**Snap.**

Trent's eyes shot open as he quickly rose to defend himself against whatever had snapped the twig he'd just heard. A young man had emerged from the forest's edge, not but five feet from the slumbering fighter. He looked a bit unnerved by Trent's battle-ready position and dropped the bundle of sticks that he was carrying at his feet, raising his hands slowly. Trent had a slight suspicion that he'd seen this person somewhere before, trying to remember as they both stood in silence. The man wasn't particularly tall, or conspicuously dressed; he wore brown pants with a simple white shirt and a dark brown coat over it all. Trent figured him to be quite average in appearance in almost every aspect. The only unique qualities of the man were plastered onto his head: his hair, bleach-white and thin, and his eyes, a hypnotic blend of- _Wait…_

The man put his hands down and relaxed. "It's probably coming back to you right about now." He said, reaching down to pick up his kindling and otherwise ignoring Trent. The fighter struggled with the rampaging strings of thought within his mind for a few seconds, trying to piece together some sort of recollection of the newcomer. After about twenty seconds, it was all made clear.

"Bennett?"

"Bingo."

Bennett walked right past Trent, following his beeline for the small circle of rocks a few yards behind him that was intended to be campfire site. "I'll explain. Whenever someone looks into my eyes, they fall under a spell that I've had put on them. It makes it so that if I'm not within someone's line of sight for an extended period of time, that person will forget all about me and any events that occurred in my presence. It's quite a useful defense mechanism when you're running away from the authorities. When see my eyes again, though, it all comes back, and eventually you'll build up an immunity to the effect altogether."

"Well I guess that explains whatever just happened… but why are you here now?" Trent followed Bennett to the stone circle and sat down a yard or so away from him. "And how did we get here?"

Bennett sat in front of Trent and began to explain. "Uh... let's see… well, I hit the crowd with a couple of blinder grenades, and then took on Leo's appearance again. I turned right around to you two, told you who I was, and flung you both over my shoulders, running straight through the gates after that. We were stopped about four times by guards, but then they saw who I was disguised as and backed off pretty quickly… and as for right now, we're about two miles or so outside of Erott, on the edge of the Hythan Forest." Trent looked as though he were about to interject, but Bennett stopped him quickly with a raised hand. "And don't worry, I went back and got you guys' horse and chocobo, they're only a short walk into the forest away. Actually, I just got back from feeding them when you stopped me."

With a sigh of relief, any shred of tenseness that remained in Trent faded. "So since you took us all the way out here… I assume we're safe?"

"We're safe."

"Well why don't I remember any of that, then?"

"I've found that people have a much more difficult time remembering things if they see my eyes when I'm disguised as someone else… I'm not sure why, but that's just how it is."

"Sounds like that could be a curse more than a gift."

"A curse for anybody looking for me, maybe." Bennett and Trent both laughed at this for a bit before Trent continued his interrogation.

"Now my main question: why are you here?"

"Come again?"

"Like… I guess what I'm asking is why did you save us? You could've blinded the crowd and then made your escape into the city easily; you didn't have to take me and Jiece at all."

Bennett was quiet for a few seconds and then unfurled his body onto the ground, throwing his hands behind his head. "Well, let's put it this way: I'd been staying in Erott for as long as I possibly could, doing whatever I could to clean it up. I thought that I'd had some kind of impact all these years, but I guess that Leo guy made me realize just how little all my efforts had yielded. Not only was he kind enough to point that out, but just his presence at all let me see that the situation was only getting worse for me… I've been chased by a guy like him before; the kind of guy who'll never stop hunting you until you're behind bars or dead. The first one was bad enough, but Leo's a great hero on top of that. That's just an indication that my time left in Erott was short. And so I figured that I might as well come along with you two since I don't have anywhere else to go."

"That's rough, man… I'm sorry you got run out of your home like that because of us."

"Nah, don't worry about it. I needed to get over the delusion that I was making a difference anyway… so I owe you."

"Heh, don't mention it then." They laughed again, this time in a slightly less awkward atmosphere. Bennett didn't seem like all that bad of a guy to Trent; in fact, he looked like he might be a really nice guy. Trent smiled inwardly at the latest of the odd twists that his life had entailed in the past few days, and then was suddenly hit by another. "Where's Jiece?"

'.'.'

"They're at the Hythan Forest now, milord. Just at the edge of it, closest to Erott."

'.'.'

Jiece had been laid down to rest in the same woodland clearing as Dio and Trent's horse. It was sizable enough, surrounded quite snugly by a thick growth of pine trees all around. There was a fireplace here too, but it looked like the bard had been far too lazy to attempt to start a fire. He was perfectly fine with the light and warmth supplied by the afternoon sun, finding its more natural feeling to be a compliment to his predicament. He was nursing a sprained ankle when Trent and Bennett finally got to the clearing. "Took you long enough to wake up, ya lazy-"

"Shut up, we hadn't slept for almost a full day. I was bushed." Trent punched Jiece's shoulder playfully as he passed him to his horse. Bennett leaned against a nearby tree as soon as he'd entered, and smirked.

"You're not exactly one to talk, Jiece. You were sleep-talking the whole time I was carrying you. Something about a girl's hair reminding you of a warm, safe place?"

Blood rushed into every nook and cranny of Jiece's facial features, turning him a bright shade of red in seconds. "I-I, uh… I... that's personal! It's a poem…"

"-For a very special lady of his." Trent finished the statement, rummaging through a nearby sack labeled "feed". Jiece coughed, awkwardly wanting to avoid the subject when it came up around a stranger like Bennett. He decided the change the subject and opened his mouth to speak, only to have Trent add "with knives" to his previous comment, followed by "and bombs."

"Thanks, Trent… you make me sound like a lunatic, but thanks."

"No problem."

'.'.'

"I see that we have a couple of scouts patrolling the area… tell them to find the targets and await the order to strike."

'.'.'

After a while, the three had gotten settled in to their new accommodations near the fire; now that enough were awake to keep a lookout rotation going, they were able to bring the animals and the injured bard out of the woods and into the clear night. Up until just minutes ago, the conversation had focused mainly around where to go from here. The group had decided to rely on Bennett's mastery of staying under the radar for the rest of the trip, not wanting to risk another assault by Leo or any other kind of law enforcement. Bennett wasn't necessarily against this, but didn't like the idea of having to employ his tactics wherever they went on the grounds that it would bring their pace of travel to that of a "turtle's morning jog" (or at least that's how Trent put it).

Regardless, the trio would move to the nearest port town, Akria, in hopes of finding airship transport to the settlement town near Gunyon Gorge, a popular tourist attraction of the area that would provide not only a short transit to Gagazet on foot, but the cover necessary to maintain a brisk traveling pace. Roughly thirty miles from Gunyon was their destination: the Orunitia Estate. Once there, everything would be smooth sailing.

Trent threw an apple core into the fire and let his back fall to the ground. He was tired, despite having slept for the better half of a solid day. It seemed as though his exhaustion wasn't entirely a physical matter… his mind ached. Only now, in the silence of the campfire-lit night, did he begin to ask himself the questions that he'd either ignored or left unanswered. The thoughts floated around in his head like bees in a field of flowers, occasionally leaping out to make itself known, and then darting back underneath the obscuring canopy. _Why am I doing this? Why did I leave behind my friends and home, expecting there to be no consequences? Why am I not worried about that Kourd guy? Or the spire as a whole? What… what am I doing?_

'.'.'

"The scouts have reported a confirmed sighting and await your order, milord."

'.'.'

It was dark, comfortable, and peaceful. The mixed temperature of the cold night air and the warmth of the fire was of a perfect degree. The idea of sleep crept slowly into the minds of Trent and Jiece, it being Bennett's first shift of lookout duty, though it was by no means unwelcome. A silent breeze passed over them, seemingly taking their preoccupied thoughts with it. Their eyelids begged to closed, and they were strongly inclined to give in to the temptation. Even Trent's myriad of mind-plaguing troubles weren't enough to stand up to the promise of a calming slumber as his thoughts became less frequent, less eloquent, and eventually dissipated completely. It was going to be a good rest.

'.'.'

"Proceed."

'.'.'

"Get up." Trent and Jiece were knocked out of their euphoric sleep into a semiconscious state by Bennett, who was currently and had been the very image of vigilance in keeping an eye out for trouble. "Wake up, damn it. Something's here."

Those were a pair of words that Trent loathed. Separate they were fine, but together they only meant danger. As if electrified by Bennett's utterance of the words, Trent suddenly became wide awake, rising up as quickly but quietly as he could manage. Jiece followed suit. "What-"

"Sh." Bennett pressed a finger to his lips to demand silence from the other two, an order that was immediately obeyed. It was as quiet as it had been throughout the entire evening; not a sound could be heard aside from the occasional rustling of the leaves in the nearby forest. Aside from the lack of sound, there was hardly anything to see through the darkness aside from the small space illuminated by the nearly-dead fire, which brought to life only the outlines of the three travelers that had set it up mere hours ago. There was something though, this was for sure. Something was watching them, they could all tell as they stared into the darkness of the forest's edge. It made not a sound, and showed not so much as hair, but it was there; its presence was there.

Inside, Trent felt his head ache. It was as though a strange, alien pressure had taken over the atmosphere of the campsite. He felt as though was being pulled away from the ground that he was standing on, like he was becoming distant from his surroundings somehow. The feeling grew in intensity until he felt that he was, quite literally, alone. It took several double-takes around the campfire for him to reassure himself that he was still in the company of allies, but somehow he just couldn't shake the feeling that he was being singled out, alone, exposed, and defenseless, by this onlooker. It wasn't a good sign, to say the least.

They waited in agonizing stillness for minutes that seemed like hours, with the fire growing weaker and the night growing colder all the while. Eventually the fire went out completely, leaving the three in a true void of the senses aside from touch; they could still feel the icy chill of the night. Or was it the night? None could recall the night air being so cold before they were alerted to this presence. And yet, it still seemed like nothing was wrong to the untrained eye. One would have to spend this time in the shoes of the trio to comprehend just how wretched and miserable this absence of light, sound, and movement was.

Very slowly, Bennett reached for his pack and strapped it across his back. He motioned for the others to do the same, with great care. Trent and Jiece both backed up, still facing the forest, towards their respective mounts and took the reins. They all began to walk off on Bennett's queue, never taking their gaze off of the forest's edge as they went. The pace was so painfully slow to Trent that his heart rate could nearly match a hummingbird's. All he wanted was to get out of this place, to get out of this aura of loneliness. After they'd covered a significant distance, Trent could've sworn he'd heard someone say "I love you."

Why he heard this, he didn't know. What it meant, he didn't know. Who said it, he didn't know. But Trent Cedric had never felt a fear so intense in all of his life.


	11. Break a short story

**So here's my excuse for the lateness of this coming chapter- in my American Literature class, we were assigned to write "a really, really good short story." Naturally, I was excited to be graded on doing something that I loved, so I put a lot of heart into this... I figured I should share it with you all. There may be a few formatting errors in the transition from school format to format, but for the most part I think you'll be able to follow it. Enjoy! (new chapter close on the heels of this update)**

Avery 12

Will Avery

American Literature

C. Smith, class E

04/19/09

Thicker Than Water

The radio came to life with a tinny crackling, squawking a series of hysteric, inane sounds that vaguely resembled a superior's voice. A soldier picked the device up off the crate and reversed the process. "Say again, sergeant? You're breaking up, wherever you are. Over."

There was a brief silence as three soldiers waited to hear their sergeant's voice again, the only thing keeping them bound to their home in a foreign nation. He returned to the scene, just as much in spirit as in voice. Unfortunately for the particular soldier who'd picked up the radio, he wasn't in the most tolerant of moods. Then again, he never was. "God damnit, Johnson, I ordered you to report in every five minutes and you've almost missed _three_ intervals! Now what the hell are you seeing up there? Over!"

As his two brothers-in-arms had to shy their faces away in a fit of laughter, Johnson snapped to attention and hastily responded. "S-sir! We haven't seen any activity from the rumored group, sir!" Johnson had never been the best at composing himself in the face of authority, but he was particularly bad when confronted with the sergeant. This was especially an issue when he, as well as all of the other men, knew the sergeant's feelings towards being stuck in such an insignificant location as Grimmwick during the invasion. "B-but everything else is clear, sir! I can see the lights from Third Eagle over on the horizon now, s-sir! Over!"

"Third Eagle, eh? You can see those lights, Johnson? Over."

"Y-yes sir, I can see them plain as day! Over."

"Do you know what that means, private? Over."

"That the operation is going well, sir? Ov-"

"It means you aren't doing your damn job, Johnson!" the sergeant cut him off in a fit of misplaced anger. "Nichol's squad watches Third Eagle's progress, and yours looks out for the resistance and _nothing else._ Do I make myself completely clear, private?! Over!" Needless to say, Sergeant Waters hadn't been in the most merciful of moods as of late.

"S-sir, yes ma'am! Sir! I meant sir, sir! Y-yes, crystal clear, sir! Over!"

Sergeant Waters' response was broken up over a series of static clicks and scratches. Johnson, understandably shaken up, frantically shook the radio above his head in a desperate search for a clearer message. It didn't occur to him the irony that he was actively seeking verbal abuse by doing so. The voice came back through the standard-issue speaker box, though the distortion this time came mostly from the sheer volume of it. "Jesus Christ, Johnson, shape up before _I_ have to do it for you! I said-" the signal went dead after that, if only for the brief second that it took to hijack the sergeant's frequency.

A new voice took his place. "Get the hell out of England, ya bloody yank!"

Before Johnson could react to the intruding voice, his attention was called away by the sound of shattering glass just behind him. He spun around to meet a bocce ball head-on, knocking him out with ease. The other two soldiers jolted upright as though they'd suddenly found themselves sitting on a bed of needles, but were felled almost as quickly by a combination of a nine iron to the ankles and an aluminum bat upside the head, respectively. One of the assailants dropped his bat with a satisfying "pang" and clutched his wrist dramatically as though trying to wring the life from his hand.

"Hell- that smarts!"

"Ah, quit your complainin', try taking a gunshot." The woman with the golf club gestured to a small, circular scar on her shoulder. "Your damn bat doesn't even tickle in comparison."

The man's temper flared visibly at this comment as he rushed into close quarters with his companion. "There you go with your damn bullet again! Ya cried enough when it hit you, and you're _still_ bringin' it up?"

The woman now matched his composure, their faces not but an inch apart as they spat insults back and forth. "Tess! Harry!" the third man who'd thrown the bocce ball broke in, "enough of the arguing, we've got work to do." He pushed them apart to get to the radio and tinkered with the knobs for a moment. The clearing of the static affirmed that his efforts were successful. "Al here, we've got the high squad taken care of. What else needs doing?"

The resident Irishman of the team responded in his typically loud demeanor. "Ah, you were last to take your position after all, Al! Looks like you owe me twenty quid!"

"Aren't there more important things to worry about right now?" Al found himself near the point of screaming into the receiver, tired of being surrounded by the younger, incompetent agents.

"Well don't get up in knots with me, I'm just tryin' to 'ave a little fun around here! Everyone's in position, even Clint is on time for once! We've got all of the patrols rounded up except for… huh, never mind, it looks like they just got 'im."

"Just tell me where Dieh is, Harv- is he on schedule?"

"Ah… Dieh, Dieh… Dieh…" Harvey briefly cut his communication to inspect the onscreen map of Grimmwick and found the yellow spec that represented the inventor. "Looks like he's a bit behind and… turning? No, wait, he's going back down- no, that's not… I'll get back wit' ya in a bit."

Dieh wasn't quite as adept with the element of surprise as Al and his group was; he never had been. Even as far back as elementary school, Tess and Harry had always been able to get the jump on him and he'd never been able to successfully return the favor. It had never been as big a problem as his current situation, however. His breath's burning force stung his throat as it was drawn in and out, faster and faster as he sprinted. He could still hear his pursuers barking commands and directions to one another, no matter how fast his breaths came, or how loud his steel-toed boots were on the pavement of the alley.

All wasn't lost, however. As he continued to give them something to chase, he noticed that the orders became less organized, and more confused. Things like "alpha squad, signal to theta and kappa squad that target could be coming their way" had become "what do you mean kappa isn't responding, what about theta? What do you mean- alpha? Alpha!" Dieh smirked inwardly at the blundering soldiers that the Americans had sent to Grimmwick. He wondered if they'd just assumed that the town would be defenseless and laughed through his panting.

A voice came through to his ears. "Yank squads are taken care of, open up on 'em!"

Dieh reached up to flip the switch on his own radio clip, brushing the wispy ends of his bleached hair out of the way. "Gotcha, Harv." He turned on his heel just as he reached the end of the alleyway, unhooked a metallic orb from the shoulder of his thick vest, and slung the device at them, immediately losing sight of them in an inky billowing of smoke that absorbed a good twenty yards of space in a matter of seconds. This wasn't a problem to those who knew the town like the backs of their hands.

In just twelve seconds, the inventor had scaled the packing crates next to the store that made up one half of the alley's boundaries, climbed onto the flagpole, and leapt onto the roof's edge, clearing his way onto the top with an exhausted huff of air. _It's not over yet, keep it together._ He thought to himself as he gazed into the smoky confusion that he'd left the soldiers in. _Four, three, two…_ he jumped down into the blackened abyss just as he'd timed the smoke to clear and landed solidly on the thick soles of his boots. _One!_

As predicted, the Americans had just gone straight through the smoke to evade it- now there was distance between him and them; the conflict was a completely different story. "Oy, septic!" Dieh shouted, pointing at the shorter of the two men, "your mother gave me a better workout than this last night!"

Hearing this, the shorter American charged at the inventor, the second following close behind. Dieh pitied the two only slightly, left to fight with pipes and crowbars by their own country. He met the full force of the pipe with the stubborn iron plating of his homemade gauntlet, deflecting it more than actually taking a hit, and hit his opponent with a fearsome punch to the stomach, causing him to double over. The second American came up from behind him and stabbed forward with the split end of his crowbar through the empty space. Dieh dipped to the left to dodge it, then to the right for the second strike, and grabbed the bar on the third attempt as he leaned back to avoid it, giving it a sudden downward push that struck the first of the attackers squarely on the crown of his head and knocked him out cold.

He jumped back to dodge the next hit, unfortunately finding that the yank had longer legs than he'd estimated as he took a solid hit to the side. Thinking quickly and through the pain, he wrapped his arm around it tightly and spun a full circle to right, giving his opponent two options: release the weapon or have his hand broken. As expected, he took the first choice. Moving with the momentum he created, the inventor wound up and struck the soldier with a low blow to the back of his knees, sweeping him off of the ground and onto his back. While he had his target in an adrenaline shock, he ripped a sheet from a makeshift dispenser of moist towelettes he'd soaked in chloroform and smacked it down over the soldier's mouth. In a matter of seconds, the threat had been subdued completely.

"Did you get all of that, Harv?"

"O' course I did, what else is that camera for? Whole damn world's gonna know what kind o' beastie ya get when you put a black belt of ba gua zhang and a weapon inventor together! We'll be talkin' to all the big 'uns: Spielberg, Scorsese, Gibson-"

"The point," Dieh interrupted with a tone of disappointment, "is to show that anyone in England can put up a fight, not that anyone can make a living on war."

"Psh, you are your no-fun morals…"

"Harv…"

"Alright, alright, everything's still clear; last reports say each station is still under control, you're clear to go. Third Eagle is still a good ways away… twenty-one minutes, nineteen seconds."

"Right, keeping that camera going." Dieh undid the rows of his vest's buckles and let it fall to the ground with a heavy "thud", glad to be thirty pounds lighter after all of the running. _I may not be good with surprises… but thank God for natural athleticism_. Out of his pockets, he drew two sets of roller-blade wheels that he'd designed to clip onto the bottom of his boots and proceeded to attach them. He slid forward awkwardly at first, and soon he had a smooth rhythm going, followed by an unsafe, though enjoyed, speed. "Inform the others that phase three is underway."

"Gotcha."

The cool air of the night was comfortably familiar to the inventor as it playfully wafted against his face. Two days ago, no one would've dreamed that the English-American conflict would come to such a small town as Grimmwick. Three weeks ago, no one could've guessed that the government would support domestic resistance over evacuation. Four months ago, if someone had claimed that the United States would declare war upon the United Kingdom, they would've been branded a complete and total lunatic. It went without saying that Dieh would never have guessed that he, six years out of high school with no college acceptances, would be the key player in saving the four-hundred and twelve residents of his hometown from losing everything that they owned and loved.

As he skimmed silently across the smooth pavement of the main road, he found his mind wandering back to those days in high school, before all of the pressure of the real world came crashing down on him and his friends; back when issues that seem so juvenile now seemed like they would shatter the fabric of reality. He remembered the rivalry between him and Clint to capture the heart of Tess, the only girl in their class of eight, and how awkward it sometimes was that her twin brother, Harry, was his other best friend. He remembered how he would always be the center of everyone's envy in metal shop and physical education, and how they would get back at him by taking advantage of his jumpy nerves with every prank you could name. He couldn't help but smile at the irony that the four of them once had a running joke that the Americans would try to get back at England for starting the revolutionary war.

"Pole!" shouted Harv's voice.

Dieh's eyes shot open just in time to see the street light that he was barely able to dodge as it whizzed past him. "Thanks," he mumbled, inwardly chastising himself for drifting off like that in the middle of what could possibly be the most important night of his life. _Focus…_ he told himself, _I've got to make sure this goes flawlessly._ He grabbed onto the next pole and used it as a pivot point to swing around into a shortcut. _I've got the magnet, two smoke bombs left, a grenade, a lighter, and a box of small flares, all packed up in the titanium-weave backpack._ He patted down each part of the mental checklist on his body to make sure that they were there, coming up with six out of six items present. He nodded to himself as his destination came into view: the Grimmwick dam.

He couldn't help but look back on the debate they'd had at the resistance meeting two days earlier, when they'd received news that Grimmwick could be a possible target of the American army.

_Even then we were just like we'd been in high school… always something to argue over._ He thought back to Clint's outburst at the meeting, when he nearly broke the dining room table with his fist-slamming. "Where in this plan to do you employ _logic_? If we break the dam's lock, what will happen to us when the river dies down again? Need I remind you that Grimmwick doesn't do much outside trading? That river is _the_ source of water in this place- if we can't lock up the dam to save our water supply, we'll either abandon our home or die out!"

"Well then what the hell do _you_ suggest we do?" Al gave Clint a strong shove to the chest, sending him stumbling backwards. "If we fight, they'll send more troops and wipe us out. The only way to save ourselves in this case is to sabotage ourselves; by making the dam useless in their plan, we'll no longer be a target."

Clint was just about ready to break Al's jaw in his enraged state. "Look, I'm the only one in this resistance who works at the friggin' dam. I'm telling you, if we don't have complete control over it at all times, we're risking floods, droughts, our economy, and our very lifestyle! We can't just toss all of that to the wind! I say…" Clint looked around into the eyes of his friends and neighbors; he wanted so dearly to help them see the issue from his perspective, the correct one. "We let them take the dam."

This caused a rippling uproar amidst the forty or so people present, and they began to curse and spit at him, calling him a traitor. "Listen to me!" he shouted, causing an uneasy and incomplete silence, "if we let the Americans occupy Grimmwick for however long they need to, they won't resort to violence against us and there's no way we can lose in the long run! If the war ends with us on top, we get our town back like nothing ever happened, and if the Americans end up winning, we'll be treated with kindness and mercy by our new government for willingly giving up a key point in their plan."

There was a silence that followed his last words that had a level of tension that none of them had felt before. Al stepped forward once, twice, slowly. He raised a finger and opened his mouth as though he were about to speak, but found that he was just stunned. He shook his head slightly as though he thought he were hearing things and tried again. "Did you just suggest… that we surrender?" Again there was a long silence, and Clint only stood his ground, his gaze meeting Al's veteran stare as best it could. "That we throw away hundreds upon hundreds of years of our history? Of our heritage? England has been a major world power for as long as I can remember, and as long as my father can remember, and his father, and his, and his! We once had an empire on which the sun never set, one of a size that rivaled the Roman Empire, and the Mongolian Empire! We're the sons and daughters of one of the greatest nations the world has ever known! How can you just throw all of that away to the _Americans_, whom, might I add, we _created_?" Al swiftly grabbed his rival debater's collar and brought him within an inch of his face, snarling with the red-hot breath of fury. "How will you be able to look your fellow countrymen in the eyes when all you have to tell them is that you scorned our nation with your damned white flag?" He set the boy down with every intention of being rough and stared him down, along with everyone else in the room, awaited a response.

Clint didn't have to look around at the solemn glares that he knew he was receiving. "How will you be able to when you're dead?"

_Clint… I worry about you sometimes._ Dieh thought, back in the present day in both mind and body. He'd arrived at the entrance to the damn, uninterrupted by the Americans. Everything was going according to plan, and Dieh knew that he should be happy about that, but he just couldn't understand how one of his closest friends could just give up like that. _No matter,_ he thought, _I've got to keep going._ He flipped the radio on. "Time?"

"Third Eagle's got ten minutes, four seconds before it reaches the dam. You've got time."

The inventor pushed open the front doors, shoving his detachable wheels back into his pockets. There to meet him was none other than Clint, wearing the same dark green jacket that he'd had since his junior year in high school. The familiar sight was more than welcome to Dieh; its mere presence dispersed any distrustful feelings he'd had prior. "You ready to do this?"

"Yeah, I am. I'm sorry about… you know… the meeting. I don't know what I was thinking, honestly. I just-"

"It doesn't matter now, Clint. What matters is what we do here and now, for the good of our people." He held out his hand to be shaken. "God save the Queen."

Clint smiled and took his hand, giving it one, solid shake. "God save the Queen. Now how do we do this?"

"I have here…" Dieh took the backpack off and reached inside, pulling out a dense, metallic cube just larger than his fist, "an extremely powerful magnet." He handled it carefully as he examined it, the pulsing neon-blue glow of the device's edges putting on a hypnotic lightshow all the while. "Once activated, we have ten seconds to get out of range of its effect- everything with a trace of magnetic metal within roughly ten feet of the thing will immediately be pulled towards it with tremendous force, and then pushed away from it with equal magnitude once the polarity shifts a little while into the process."

"So the whole thing only takes two seconds to work? How exactly does that bust our lock issue?" Clint asked as they now began to walk and talk, working their way to the bottom floor: the observation deck.

"Well," Dieh began as his partner opened the door to the staircase, "if we chuck it down into the locking mechanism, the magnet will bend the metal to a point far beyond repair, rendering the concept of controlling the dam absolutely impossible, and thusly rendering it useless to the Americans. Explosives were an option, but this is a much quicker and safer way to do it."

"Just not for you."

Back at the hideout, Harv's communication and video feed of Dieh went blank.

Dieh froze in terror as he heard the cocking of a gun. _There's… there's no way._ He turned as quickly as his rigid body would allow, looking straight down the barrel of Clint's father's handgun. He'd seen it before next to the fireplace of Clint's family's living room, and he'd heard the story behind it multiple times, but he never dreamed that he'd ever see it like this. "There's no way. There's just no way," was all that he could manage to say, shocked completely and totally.

"I tried to help you all." Clint began to walk forward, forcing his friend to meet each step with one backwards, through the open doorway that led to the observation deck. "But none of you could see how I could save you."

"Save us? I'm the one saving us! The resistance's plan is foolproof, and we're just minutes away from completing it!"

"Wrong! You're completely wrong! The Americans won't just leave us alone if we make our town useless to them, they'll merely see _us_ as just as useless! They'll slaughter this whole town; our friends, our families, our neighbors, our _people_! I can't just stand around and let that happen! And personally, I'm nothing less than _disgusted_ to think that you can."

The pair began to back up to the center of the room now, surrounded on all sides by the clear glass walls overlooking the waterfall that brought what small amount of tourism it could to the town. "Just put the gun away, please. We can discuss this."

"I tried to discuss this, Dieh. I tried the best I could, but some people are just too damn stubborn to see the truth, it would seem."

Dieh noticed at this point that the gun was shaking, ever so slightly, in his comrade's hand. He was nervous. _But is he unsure enough not to pull the trigger?_ "What're you gonna do, then? How is this going to fix anything?"

Surprisingly to both the gunman and the target, a tear welled up in each of Clint's eyes. They stood there on the edge of his lower eyelids, clinging onto them for dear life before they finally gave up and slid down his cheeks. "If I can kill you… I can stop this whole plan." His voice trembled a bit as he worked his way into a second sentence. "And I-I tell the rest over the radio… that the magnet malfunctioned… and you died. I can tell the rest that they have no choice but to follow my plan to save themselves! And only one person has to get hurt, that's the b-best part!"

Dieh didn't know what kind of horrible conflict was going on inside of Clint's head at the moment, but he felt oddly comforted that he knew his friend would never be able to pull the trigger. "You're like a brother to me, Clint… and I know I'm the same to you." He took a step forward, and another. This time it was the gunman backing up. "We both know that you'll never fire that gun at me… this is ridiculous." In a sudden stride, Dieh closed the gap between them and heartily embraced his companion.

"No… I have to! Please, get away from-"

"No, Clint." He tightened his embrace. "The risks are frightening, I know. But you can't put yourself in the middle of that kind of decision alone… we're all just as scared and unsure as you are, and that's why we have to do this as a team. It's going to be okay."

Clint tugged and rustled very slightly against Dieh before he brought his free arm up to return the hug. They stood in silence for a good while, the mood uplifting throughout. _It's good to know, amidst all of this, that nothing can-_ Dieh's thought process suddenly shifted when he felt a cold metal pressed against his side. An instant before he heard the gunshot, he felt Clint's one-armed grip tighten.

A moment later, Dieh fell to the floor, clutching the fresh wound just above his kidney. "Bastard!" was all that he could think to shout through his grinding teeth, writhing in agony on the cold floor tiles.

"Now _that_ was too perfect!" Clint's voice had changed completely, now brimming with confidence. "And they said theater would get me nowhere! Ha!"

"Why?!" the inventor demanded, struggling to come to terms with his agony. "Why are you doing this?!"

"My own god damned protection, of course. I was being honest when I said that I tried to help you, but you wouldn't listen. So if you bloody idiots are just going to let the Americans run you down, I'm saving my own skin! I'm gonna kill you, take your damn magnet, and tell the Americans that if they lay a finger on me, I'm gonna use it on their precious dam! That oughta get _me_ out of here in one piece, but I can't say the same for you. Now hand it over."

Dieh reluctantly pulled the cube away from his body, where he'd previously been sheltering it in his fetal position. He winced as he moved even slightly; his thoughts were scattered and incomprehensible. _Have to think… something I can do… I've got… got to focus. Focus. I save the town by breaking the lock, I have to be alive to break the lock, and I can't be alive if…_ He didn't like what he thought, but facts were facts.

The wounded inventor quickly and quietly flipped the switch on the magnet before letting his arm fall to the ground as he released it, causing it to slide across the floor, between Clint's legs, and stop about nine feet behind him. The gunman turned slightly to look at his prize, and then turned back to Dieh. "You can't even lift it up to me? You're pathetic." He cocked the gun again and squatted down, twisting the end of the barrel against Dieh's skull. "Any last words?"

Dieh sighed as he prepared for what was to come. "You always had to get that last threat in, you know. You could never just let something not go your way. It's a shame."

"Is that-" Clint's expression suddenly went from cocky to shocked as the magnet silently activated, rapidly pulling the five remaining bullets right out of the non-magnetic gun's clip and through his body in ascending order, carving a straight line of a gap right through his chest. He stood his bloodied body upright, his whole form from the chest down well on its way to being completely soaked in the crimson liquid. To say that he stumbled backwards would be a bit incorrect- it was as though his legs were taking turns in a game of one-upping, each passing the other's step with increasing distance in an eerily slow, staccato-like pattern. He opened his mouth, releasing something much more gruesome than the intended words, when the magnet reversed its polarity, spitting four of the bullets in sporadic directions, and one of them through his shoulder.

As though it was only the final bullet that had taken his life, Clint fell backwards through glass wall he'd shattered with the first bullet that had gone through Dieh. He made only a faint gurgling noise as his weight shifted enough to send him over the edge, and after that, only the rushing waterfall could be heard.

_It's… not over yet._ Dieh was even grunting in pain in his own mind as he stood up to finish what he'd started, trying to drive away all of the distracting thoughts. _Mourning, regrets, explanations… come later. Now is my last chance._

"I'm tellin' ya, that bastard's wearing a jammer! We can't- oh! He's back!" Harv's voice was more than welcome to the battered inventor. "Dieh! What happened? Where's Clint, that bloody traitor?! I knew we couldn't trust him!"

"Harv… time."

"What? Oh, uh- Third Eagle's a minute and twenty seconds off, you've got to get out of there _now_!"

"Can't do that, Harv. I'm gonna see this to the end if it kills me." He plucked the receiver out of his ear so that he wouldn't be able to hear Harv's protests and held it in front of him. "God save the Queen," was the last thing he said before he threw the radio through the same broken window and into the falls.

As quickly as he could, Dieh hobbled over to the "employees only" door on the other side of the room, next to the staircase. _An explosion could just as easily bring down the whole damn as it could break the locking mechanism…_ he thought to himself when he considered the use of the grenade. _But a contained explosion might do the trick. The only problem…_ he'd now barged through the door and could plainly see the square opening in the iron floor, through which the inner mechanics of the dam's functions laid in total darkness, _is aiming._

With the magnet, aim wouldn't have been a problem- a simple toss into the abyss would cause enough damage to any given part of the mechanism, which would start a chain reaction that would eventually destroy it all. However, Dieh would need a clear shot into the dead center of the mechanism to break it with a contained explosion. All he needed to do was illuminate the chamber to get that shot.

Within seconds Dieh had the solution, putting one of the flares in each of the titanium-weave backpack's side pockets. He proceeded to light both of them, taking the pin out of the highly dangerous final piece to the puzzle immediately afterward. He hastily stuffed the grenade into the pack and stuck it, the arm carrying it, and his head through the opening. _I should have just long enough… _He tried to reach down as far as he could with the flares to see as much as possible, and succeeded in making out the edges of the machinery below with the glare of light. But none of the edges looked right- none were close enough together to suggest a mechanical core.

He began to panic, looking frantically from one side to the other to decide where to drop the bomb before it took him with it. It was only now that it occurred to Dieh that the core could be below where his legs tensed to keep him from falling in on the surface, in a blind spot that he couldn't draw his head further out to check, lest he descend into the blackness. With mere moments left, his brain shut down as instinct took over, deciding to take the risk. He swung the bag underneath his surfaced body and let go of the load with a heavy grunt. _God save us all! _He faintly remembered hearing a "clink" before the explosion, a ray of hope in the darkness of the room.

Death wasn't nearly as bad as he'd figured it would be. Honestly, it was a welcome change of pace after all of the physical and mental strain of his last minutes on earth. He felt himself ascend through the light-headed stages of consciousness as he let go, thinking to himself how many people he'd saved with his deed. Dieh was distinctly at peace, and never wanted it to be otherwise.

Then again, you don't always get exactly what you wish for. Dieh learned this as he was roused awake by a familiar, bocce-seasoned hand on his back, shaking him. His body was picked up and his arms thrown over the shoulders of two unidentifiable people as he descended through the light-headed stages of consciousness, eventually becoming at least somewhat aware of his surroundings. Familiar voices came to him. He could barely piece together a sentence from one of the two: "That's a shame about Clint, though… at least we can still help this one."

The inventor's eyes tried to blink as he shook off his pains. "Harry? Al?" Dieh mumbled as he tried to lift his head, finding it to be a fruitless effort.

"Oh, he can even talk? Thank God for your natural athleticism, most bodies couldn't take that kind of strain." Dieh could see Al's face without even looking up, framed in an overgrown head of hair that was just starting to gray.

"And yours can't take much more. We got here in the nick of time." Harry's lanky arms seemed to be channeling the strength that Dieh's body wished it could.

"Let… let me down, guys." Dieh managed to speak a complete sentence as they walked out of the front doors of the dam, the sun threatening to peak out over the distant horizon. "I can… walk." He hobbled two steps away from them and came that much closer to full consciousness. "How'd the plan go?" he asked as he ran a hand over the tender area where he'd been shot, which he discovered had already been cleaned and bandaged.

"Do you want the fairy-tale version or the real version?" Harry's sarcasm was like music to Dieh, who never thought he'd hear it again.

"You know me."

"Well then, the plan failed." Dieh's heart sank as a million and one questions began to form a hurricane of thought within his head, though Harry continued before he could ask anything. "We're fine, though. The Americans had to turn back- from the communications we've hijacked, Third Eagle's pilot got hit by a rogue bullet and died instantly; they have no idea where it came from."

Dieh's thoughts immediately went to the magnet, and the four bullets that had shot off in unknown directions when the polarity was reversed. He was nothing short of baffled. "And the dam?" was all that he could think to say.

"Well," Tess's voice came from behind the three of them as she emerged from the front doors, an odd look of satisfied disappointment on her face, "nothing seems to be damaged; not a screw out of place. Turns out you missed with your grenade-in-a-bag and threw it into an empty corner, so we didn't even lose our dam." She made a beeline for Dieh and compressed him in a warm embrace. "You took a big risk with that move, you idiot."

Dieh smiled back and returned the gesture. "Can't you at least show your idiot that you're happy he's alive?" he asked as he buried his face into her shoulder. "Or that you're worried about his wounds?" She took a step back and parted her lips as though she was about the respond, but the weary inventor cut her off. "And you can't tell me to 'try taking a gunshot before I start complaining' anymore, by the way."

Tess grinned and gave him a loving punch in the shoulder. "You're no fun. As long as you don't turn your back on us like Clint," her face briefly tarried on a sour expression before returning to its relief upon the mention of the name, "then I'm happy you're alive."

Dieh's grin twisted into a cunning smirk. "Am I not facing forward?"


	12. Escaping the Estate

**Escaping the Estate**

"Left, central assault!" A commanding voice rained down onto its lone listener like fire, causing his whole body to groan with the burning pain of the drill. The receiver lashed out to his left with a thunderous stomp, hurling a sizable chunk of the granite flooring into the air just in front of him, which he sent flying forward at chest-level with the strike of his fist. He felt a harsh wave of exhaustive pain rattle his side as it traveled from his hand all the way up to his shoulder, and into his back. He exhaled powerfully, remaining still as a statue after the attack. The voice called again.

"Rear, lower assault!" The listener carried out the command and whirled around on his heel, his arm outstretched overhead, and slammed his open palm onto the ground. A contained wave of fire shot across the floor in front of him, rolling across the ground like a log. He then stepped forward and, with a triumphant grunt, shot a fierce uppercut into the freshly-heated air with his other hand, again releasing a steam-inducing breath. All four of his appendages felt as though they had been subject to a shower of boulders, battered and bruised far worse than they'd been the previous days. Then again, every day was worse than the previous one. Every day the intensity of the exercise was increased, adding new injuries before the old ones could heal.

"Above!" He responded with a quick, concentrated blast of air directly above him to knock his imaginary foe off balance. He then grounded himself as well as he could in the split second of recovery and lashed into the sky with a burst of lightning, controlled as well as he could manage. He heaved a heavy sigh of relief; lightning magic was one of the most taxing on the body, mostly in the shoulders, which absorbed most of the kick from its use. Suddenly he felt a pain that didn't come from his own body, though, in the form of a familiar electric shock in his ankle. He toppled over onto the hard stone floor in a writhing pain and groped for his wounded ankle to make sure that it was still there.

He grunted and gasped as his body desperately tried to recover from the attack, struggling to put a stop to the recoiled twitching. "What was wrong with that? You said above!"

"I didn't say **directly** above. You attacked directly upward. What if you'd been hit at a downward diagonal? The sky entails more angles than one, Rinn."

Rinn tried to bring himself to his feet, knowing better than to complain about the conditions of his training. "Yes, sir." He said, swallowing his pride for the hundredth time that day. "How can I improve my defense?"

His teacher was quick to reply with a razor-like tongue. "Do not try to hinder the lightning, let it be as unpredictable as nature intended. It should strike in as many directions as necessary."

Rinn would never use a lightning spell unhindered, because it could potentially strike an ally or even himself. In fact, the chances of such were just as high as the chances of striking an aerial enemy. However, he would also never speak out against the opinions, however misguided, of his teacher. "Anything else, sir?"

"No, that's all for this morning. Do you have anything to say before I leave you to your books?"

_Yes._ "No. No sir. Just a quick question."

"Yes?"

Rinn composed himself as best he could in his drained state, and attempted to stand up straight. He cleared his throat. "I was wondering, sir, what your opinion was on the possibility of my returning to school. Clearly conditions are safe once again, and-"

He was stopped rather forcibly, his tongue pinned to his jaw with a small-radius gravity spell. His audience turned to face him directly and stared him down. "I fulfilled my end of the bargain. You went to the school, and I stood idly by to 'give it a chance', as you put it. Then when I hear of the encroaching threat of the Red Spire, I come to pull you out of harm's way. And when I get there, are you training? Are you studying? No, you're caught in nothing more remarkable than a schoolyard tussle, blissfully and ignorantly unaware of the infinite dangers that await you outside of the walls of that disgusting establishment that I once so foolishly addressed as an institute of learning. After that experience, I vowed never to let you break away from my own, personalized training regimen until I judged you to be ready to face the perils of the ever-present demon threat. And I can assure you, that regimen does **not** include, nor will it **ever** include, your returning to that despicable excuse for a school." He leaned in close and nearly bore a hole into Rinn's forehead with his gaze. "Do I make myself clear?"

Rinn tried to remain steadfast in the face of his intimidator. "Yes, father. Perfectly clear." _It was worth a shot…_

'.'.'

After spending every hour of daytime traveling just inside the forest's edge, Trent, Jiece, and Bennett were exhausted. They pressed on, however, with as much strength and zeal as they could manage, partially wanting to make up for the time lost at Erott, but mostly out of fear that they had yet to evade the lurking creature that they'd encountered just hours ago. None of them could feel its presence anymore, but for some reason they couldn't shake the feeling that they hadn't seen the last of… whatever was in the forest. No one announced how they felt, though. They all kept to themselves, not wanting to bring the subject back up. It was as though they each believed that speaking of the lurker would somehow bring it back.

They instead talked about other things, like the standard conversational cop-out: weather. It actually wasn't too bad of a day at all, contrasting the lingering fear that the three travelers felt inside. The sun was shining brightly and only a cloud or two could be seen in the sky, while the temperature remained around a comfortable level of the mid-70s. It was just the kind of day where no one would expect something extreme to occur; the kind of day where everything seemed to be right with the world.

But not everything was right with the world. Far, far away, back at the three-way split in the road that Trent and Jiece had encountered within the first few hours of their journey, there came another pair of travelers. These two were significantly different from the bard and fighter, though they knew them quite well. They were a man and a woman. The man threw his hood back and put a hand to the same worn sign post that the earlier duo had come across, a faint glow pulsing in the space between his palm and the wood of the marker. His eyes shut tightly, trying to concentrate on the scene he could just barely make out through the torrential fabric of time. He saw Trent rubbing his chin in thought as he stared at the post, and Jiece close behind, reading from it. He saw them turn to one another and tried to read their lips in the soundless image he was receiving, just barely picking up a word spoken twice: "Erott".

He retracted his hand and pulled his white-and-red hood back over his snowy locks of hair, breathing out a sigh of relief after using such a delicate form of magic unharmed. "Well they stopped here, you were right… looks like they went to Erott. You know him well."

The woman slapped her hands down onto her hips and shook her head. "It's so typical of Trent to take the easy way out and set a course for the closest town… didn't even stop to think that the school might've sent word to the cities to look out for them." She brought her hands up and crossed her arms with an exhale of both disappointment and anger. "I bet they even screwed up and got thrown into jail or something."

"Normally I'd disagree, but I wouldn't put it past those two… sometimes they just can't look out for themselves. Or at least, they don't _think_ to look out for themselves."

"Yeah, no kidding."

Both of the new travelers turned to look down the path that led to Erott, where the trees thinned out into fields in less than a quarter of a mile. A few willful leaves flapped about in the wind around them, accounting for the only sound of the scene. The thought that their next move would probably affect the rest of their lives passed through their heads. At last the woman spoke: "Before we go any further… are you sure you want to come with me? It's a big-"

"Decision?" the man smiled without turning his head from the road. "I'm more than ready; I assumed _you_ were coming with _me_. I've said it once and I'll say it again: those two could get themselves killed doing this."

The woman laughed, again shaking her head in a mass of short, golden-blonde locks that caught the sunlight as they swayed. "Only this time it's a bit more serious than seeing who can fall further without breaking anything."

"Or trying to find out who can swallow the most gil without getting sick."

The laughter died along with the mood as the time to do-or-die descended upon them. "So then we're off, I guess. No turning back," said the blonde with confidence.

"Ladies first." The man pulled his gloves over his hands and checked that each finger was secured, one by one, before grabbing the nearby reins and swinging himself over his palfrey. The woman followed suit as they set off.

'.'.'

Rinn knocked timidly on the heavy oak double-doors in the center of the estate. His last hope for escape from his father lay on the other side of the barrier, most likely in the middle of something he'd rather not be disturbed from. Even knowing this, however, Rinn knew that he had no choice but to use his greatest weapon in getting the upper hand over his father: his _father's_ father.

"Come in, Rinn."

The humble student of a mage waited patiently for the layers upon layers of locks to unfasten themselves, loose their chains, and shift their gears out of one another's way to split the door into two monolithic halves. They slid eerily across the marble floor, pushing inwards to the inner sanctum of the estate, completely soundless. It was as though the action took place with the rest of the world frozen in time, for not even the smallest speck of dust was disturbed in the sweeping motion of the entrance. Instead, everything was perfectly still and quiet while the wall of light that filled the doorway receded, revealing the one of the last true sanctuaries to weavers of magic: a place far too vast and complicated to be fathomed by anyone less than an archmage.

The doorway, in all of its ancient, gold-trimmed, ivory-handled beauty, dissipated into a series of thumbnail-sized cubes as Rinn passed through it, catching the scene in the corner of his eye. One by one, in rapid succession, the bits rushed away from him as though magnetically repulsed, each as fast as a speeding bullet, until there was only an abyssal darkness in its wake. Rinn found himself standing in one of the few places in Graphia that could truly be called a wonder: a room that housed an entirely different dimension within its boundaries.

Rinn had been inside of this room six times in his life, and had been completely baffled by its majesty every time; this time was no exception. Within the confines, or lack thereof, of the walls was a stretch of infinite space, in which the laws of time and space themselves submit to the will of the domain's occupants. Ripped out of the very fabric of reality through a month-long ritual, the room was the pinnacle of magical achievement, and the product of a task thought impossible by even the grandest of mages. Quite literally, it was a realm of nonexistence. Unless one had a perfect understanding of its workings, inside and out, there was no entrance or escape. Only one man had this understanding, and therefore he was the only one worthy of being called the keeper of this realm, which he'd aptly named "The Hall of Paradox". Vivi Orunitia, one of the few beings powerful enough to match even Alucard, was this man.

Unfortunately, Rinn's mind couldn't even begin to piece together the infinite quandary of the hall, and saw only blackness as he floated aimlessly in the void.

"And what do you wish of your grandfather this day?"

Rinn thought long and hard about how to make his response as short as possible. He knew well that even the simple task of speaking a word took a hefty toll on his mental strength in this realm, having fainted four out of the six times he'd visited. "Freedom," he said.


End file.
